Klangfeld Nr.3 fur Alina
Florian Claar (born 1968) · 2004
Dotted across the lawn are twelve silver horns that rise out of the grass like the bells of tubas, some as tall as a child, some higher. They look like ventilation shafts or sculptures, and at first most visitors walk past. Then someone puts their mouth to one and speaks, and a voice comes out of another horn thirty metres away. Each horn is joined underground by pipe to one partner, but the pairs are deliberately far apart and not marked, so you never know where your words will surface or whose voice will suddenly emerge beside you.
Florian Claar is a German artist based in Japan who works with sound as a sculptural material. The German title means sound field number three, for Alina, and the piece belongs to a series in which he treats acoustic space as something you can walk through. The technology is the old speaking tube of ships and country houses, nothing electronic at all. Try it properly: lean close, speak quietly, and then hurry to the other horns to listen. Notice that the bells face different directions and are set at different heights, so that children and adults use them differently, and that the aluminium takes on the temperature of the day.
The work was commissioned for the museum's opening in 2004 and sits outside the ticket line, so it is used all day by schoolchildren, families and people simply crossing the park. It embodies the idea behind the whole building: a museum without walls where strangers are encouraged to meet. The unexpected connection, a laugh answered by a stranger's hello, is the actual artwork, and it changes with every person who tries it.
Did You Know? The horns work like the speaking tubes on old ships, but the pairs are secretly matched so nobody knows where their voice will come out.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.