Room 21

Creating a dialogue between contemporary performance and historical art, independent curator Lee Tusman's Room 21 will commission New York-based composer Jace Clayton in the creation of a performance and album-length composition informed by the artworks of The Barnes Foundation and Albert Barnes' extensive record collection held in the museum's archives. Clayton's composition will draw on the Barnes' distinctive combination of European and American Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, African artwork, ancient artifacts, decorative arts, and metalwork, and will examine issues of adjacency between different artists and cultures in the collection. At the Barnes, Clayton will be joined by five groups of instrumentalists and singers—arranged in the Barnesian symmetry inspired by how the works are installed in the gallery—performing simultaneously in different areas of the museum's atrium before coming together for a unified performance. Offering audiences a way to reconnect with and reimagine the collection through sound, Clayton's concert will reward roaming through the performance, much like an audience roams through the art collection.

Additional unrestricted funds are added to each grant for general operating support.