Time Piece Beacon marks the hour with the cessation of a sound, creating a moment of stillness.

Artist Biography

Although Max Neuhaus was born in Beaumont, Texas, in 1939, he spent part of his early childhood in Fishkill, New York, before attending high school in Houston, Texas. From 1957 to 1962, he studied percussion at the Manhattan School of Music, after which he toured the United States and Europe as a percussion soloist and gave recitals at Carnegie Hall. In 1966, he made his first acoustic artwork. Thereafter, he used sound to transform space and perceptions of place in works he termed “sound installations.” His work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries, including solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1978); Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (1983); and the Kunsthalle, Bern (1989). He was also included in Documenta 6 (1977) and 9 (1992), the 1983 Whitney Biennial, and the 1999 Venice Biennale. In addition to Times Square (1977) and Time Piece Beacon (2005), which are both in Dia’s collection, permanent sound works by Neuhaus include those in Graz, Austria; Geneva, Switzerland; Bern, Switzerland; Turin, Italy; Bordeaux, France; and Kassel, Germany, among other locations. Max Neuhaus passed away on February 3, 2009 near his home in Naples, Italy.