In a stunt that falls somewhere between “awesome” and “as pretentious as an artist bottling his own fart and calling it a masterpiece,” brood rockers the National played the same song, “Sorrow,” for six straight hours at MoMA PS1 in New York City yesterday. If you happen to enjoy the National, as I do, it’s a fascinating experiment, akin to saying a word so many times that it loses all meaning (or something), or as MoMA’s website puts it:
By stretching a single pop song into a day-long tour de force the artist continues his explorations into the potential of repetitive performance to produce sculptural presence within sound.
Sorrow found me when I was young,
Sorrow waited, sorrow woncommences the song by The National, whose music and lyrics repeatedly conjure notions of romantic suffering and contemporary Weltschmerz—themes Kjartansson often uses in his own work employing references as wide-ranging as Ingmar Bergman, the German Romantics, and Elvis Presley. As in all of Kjartansson’s performances, the idea behind A Lot of Sorrow is devoid of irony, yet full of humor and emotion. It is another quest to find the comic in the tragic and vice versa. (Via)
Like I said: or something. Here’s footage.
