Crossing the Line: A Fact v. Fiction Guide to New York Museums

One new idea for every day in 2011. We're talking big, small, local, international, in action, and on the drawing board. Here's today's -- what's yours? For its fifth-annual fall festival, the French Institute Alliance Francaise and conceptual sound collective Soundwalk recorded factual and fictitious stories: American writer and art historian Teju...

By Claire Lawton

September 25, 2011

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One new idea for every day in 2011. We're talking big, small, local, international, in action, and on the drawing board. Here's today's -- what's yours?

For its fifth-annual fall festival, the French Institute Alliance Francaise and conceptual sound collective Soundwalk recorded factual and fictitious stories: American writer and art historian Teju Cole and French novelist and poet Olivier Cadiot guide listeners through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, writer and professor Phillippe Claudel tells stories of the work in the Neue Gallerie's Cafe Sabarsky, writer Camille Laurens narrates pieces in the Guggenheim, and poet and performance artist John Giorno shares a collection of poems of the Central Park reservoir.

The five tour guides' focus is parallel with the festival's theme, "What do we rely on to determine the truth from fiction?", and is described on the project website as a journey (real or imagined) to the source of each writer's inspiration.

Their guides are available for free download (in French and English) from the Soundwalk website and can be downloaded and played all at once or as individual tracks.

For more information, check out the Soundwalk website.

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