LOS ANGELES — Techno music pioneer Carl Craig is no stranger to warehouses. For more than 30 years, the electronic music producer and DJ has been an influential figure on the dancefloor, from DJing underground parties in his native Detroit to headlining festivals and clubs around the world. This weekend, Craig will transform a 40,000 square foot former police car warehouse in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, the largest of three branches of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) – not into an all-day party. night, but into an art installation that celebrates the club as a place of community, liberation and transcendence.
Party/After-Party uses sound and light to chart a course through a night in the life of a DJ, from the quiet before the crowds appear to the beat and strobe of the party to the ambient comedown the next morning. It also conveys some of the loneliness and physical effects – like tinnitus – who just took center stage, a “contrast with the glamorous perception of the touring musician,” in Craig’s words.
The work is based on layered sound loops that move and circulate through the room through a set of speakers, programmed so that each 30-minute cycle is different. Four LED columns provide minimal visual counterpart to the music.
“I want people to be drawn to where the sounds take them,” said Craig Hyperallergic. “There are sounds coming from almost every part of the room, whispers, sounds going over your head. I hope it will surprise people.”
The work was originally commissioned for Dia Tag in 2020, and Craig worked with Kelly Kivland, then the center’s curator, for five years to design the installation specifically in response to the industrial architecture of this site. “When I was asked to consider coming to MOCA, I really had to think long and hard about it,” Craig said. “I visited the spot quote a few times before it made sense for me to give the green light… This will be a great adventure for someone who has seen the piece in its original form.” According to Alex Sloane, Associate Curator of Performance and Programs at MOCA, this iteration is a site-specific “second chapter of the work” that takes into account the unique qualities and needs of the museum space.
A key difference between the two versions comes at a critical moment when daylight floods the dark space. At Dia, a wall of windows opened with mechanical shutters, which is not possible at MOCA. “We use skylights, which makes the room different because California daylight, richer lighting, comes from the ceiling,” Craig explained.
Another difference concerns the timing of each exposure. It was due to open in Dia on March 6, 2020, a week before the first COVID-19 lockdowns shut down much of the country. When it reopened during a brief lull in the pandemic later that summer, it was an emotional moment.
“It made you crave the intimacy of the nightclub you couldn’t go to,” Sloane says. “This new chapter is a chance for joy and euphoria to come to the museum.”
Although Party/After-Party has its roots in underground dance culture, Craig makes it clear that he’s not just turning the museum into a club. He quotes The permanent sound installation by Max Neuhaus to Dia Beacon as being very influential for the way he designed his first intervention at the museum.
“I had to figure out what this cat was doing, do something that my generation would understand and resonate with,” he said. Hyperallergic.
As far as it can be discussed in relation to sound art, minimalism and even the movement of light and space, Party/After-Party is a celebration of underground electronic music and the sense of togetherness and freedom it has offered, in large part, to black and queer communities. To cement this bond, the show will feature three evenings of musical performancesfeaturing Craig and his friends, collaborators and associates including DJ Holographic, King Britt, Moritz von Oswald, Kenny Larkin and others.
Electronic music has undoubtedly entered the mainstream, and while Craig may be partly responsible for its wide acceptance, he hopes Party/After-Party can offer a taste of its more radical potential. “I’ve always considered what I do as art, not as a commodity,” he says. “When people tip me, I say, ‘I’ve already been paid.’ If I take your tip, you expect me to play your favorite songs, and that doesn’t happen.
“I want people to have the ability to connect with their spirit,” he continued. “To have this spiritual experience, walk to the center when the light comes on in the right place.”
