FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM PRESENTS
POUR CREVER
A fountain of memories by German-born sculptor, inventor, and sound artist Trimpin
September 24, 2015–ongoing
(San Francisco, CA, September 1, 2015) This September, The Contemporary Jewish Museum
(The CJM) becomes the new home for a moving and ethereal sculpture by acclaimed artist Trimpin.
Pour Crever is a 2010 work that was made to memorialize the seventieth anniversary of the
deportation of all the Jews from the artist’s hometown of Efringen-Kirchen in Southern Germany to
Gurs, the notorious detention camp in Southern France. It was originally shown outside the town
hall of Breisach, in Germany. It makes its American debut at The CJM to mark the seventy-fifth
anniversary of the tragic event. The title is a quotation from the great philosopher Hannah Arendt,
who survived Gurs. When asked why she was sent there, she said, “pour crever” (to die miserably).
The sculpture, which will be displayed in The Museum’s soaring lobby, is a tall, vertical piece using
the motif of railroad tracks for its structure. A tank of water at the top some fourteen feet in the air
matches an identical tank sitting on the floor. A hidden computer releases water from the top in a
controlled fashion so as to spell out the names of all 300 of the Jewish residents. The names are
spelled out, fall through space, and are swallowed up again at the bottom.
“I cannot tell the whole story of Gurs, but I can tell a fragment,” says Trimpin. “And with this
fragment the story will keep going. I am saying, this is what happened. It can never be forgotten.”
Trimpin is a German-born kinetic sculptor, composer, and sound artist who has lived and worked in
Seattle since 1979. Trimpin's work integrates sculpture and sound across a variety of media including
fixed installation and live music, theater, and dance performance. His works are often
electromechanically actuated by embedded microcontrollers that communicate MIDI. He was the
first artist to connect computer controls with acoustic instruments and music-making sculpture.
Combining digital technology with everyday salvaged materials, Trimpin has invented ways of
playing everything from giant marimbas to a 60-foot stack of guitars using MIDI commands. Taking
inspiration equally from the junkyard as the museum and the concert hall, Trimpin often creates
these eccentric and interactive instruments from found materials, including saw blades, toy monkeys,
duck calls, beer bottles, bunsen burners, slide projectors, turkey basters, and pottery wheels.
His sound sculptures, installations, and set designs have been developed in collaboration with artists
such as Merce Cunningham, Samuel Beckett, and the Kronos Quartet. Trimpin is celebrated for his
collaborations with the great American composer Conlon Nancarrow, transposing Nancarrow’s
compositions for player piano to digital form. These works have been exhibited locally, nationally,
and internationally at spaces including the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, Circulo De Bellas
Artes in Madrid, and the LOGOS Foundation in Ghent. He has a renowned permanent work at the
Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle. Trimpin’s awards include the MacArthur Foundation’s
“Genius Award” and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as residencies at numerous art centers,
universities, and colonies. A documentary film TRIMPIN: The Sound of Invention premiered at the
South by Southwest Film Festival in 2009.
“This work is part of the ongoing efforts of The Museum to offer exciting new experiences to the
visitor in the lobby, even before entering the galleries proper,” says Chief Curator Renny
Pritikin. “Along with Dave Lane’s Lamp of the Covenant, installed on the ceiling directly over the heads
of visitors, the havruta artist collaborations, and now with Trimpin’s work, our guests can see at a
glance that this is a welcoming museum, committed to supporting contemporary art and artists
through an ongoing exploration of Jewish themes.”
Executive Director Lori Starr adds, “Activating The CJM lobby with new site-specific commissions
and other works of contemporary art is a core element of our strategy to engage visitors from the
moment they arrive. This wondrous work of art, a testament to memory, is our way of addressing
the question of how the Holocaust will be communicated to new generations as those who
experienced it directly pass on. It’s everyone’s obligation to be the communicator. Art is one way.”
RELATED PROGRAMMING
MUSIC/PERFORMANCE
The Penumbra String Quartet: Steve Reich’s Different Trains
Sunday, September 27, 2015
3–4pm
FREE with regular admission
The Penumbra String Quartet performs Steve Reich’s Grammy-winning Different Trains, a threemovement piece for strings and recorded tape. Reich wrote it as a meditation on the trains that
transported Jews to concentration camps across Europe.
About The Contemporary Jewish Museum
With the opening of its new building on June 8, 2008, The Contemporary Jewish Museum ushered
in a new chapter in its twenty-plus year history of engaging audiences and artists in exploring
contemporary perspectives on Jewish culture, history, art, and ideas. The facility, designed by
internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, is a lively center where people of all ages and
backgrounds can gather to experience art, share diverse perspectives, and engage in hands-on
activities. Inspired by the Hebrew phrase “L’Chaim” (To Life), the building is a physical
embodiment of The CJM’s mission to bring together tradition and innovation in an exploration of
the Jewish experience in the twenty-first century.
Major support for The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhibitions and Jewish Peoplehood
Programs comes from the Koret Foundation. The Museum also thanks the Jim Joseph Foundation
for its major support of innovative strategies for educating and engaging audiences in Jewish
learning. Additional major support is provided by an Anonymous donor; Alyse and Nathan Mason
Brill; Gaia Fund; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel
Tax Fund; Walter and Elise Haas Fund; the Hellman Family; the Jewish Community Federation of
San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties; Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt; the
Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation and
Endowment Fund; Osterweis Capital Management; Dorothy R. Saxe; Target; and Wendy and
Richard Yanowitch.
For more information about The Contemporary Jewish Museum, visit The Museum’s website at
thecjm.org.
For media information or visuals visit our online press gallery or please contact:
The Contemporary Jewish Museum
Nina Sazevich
Public Relations
415.752.2483
nina@sazevichpr.com
Melanie Samay
Marketing and Communications Manager
415.655.7833
msamay@thecjm.org
Online thecjm.org/press
General Information
The Museum is open daily (except Wednesday) 11am–5pm and Thursday, 11am–8pm. Museum
admission is $12 for adults, $10 for students and senior citizens with a valid ID, and $5 on
Thursdays after 5pm. Youth 18 and under always get in free. For general information on The
Contemporary Jewish Museum, the public may visit The Museum’s website at thecjm.org or call
415.655.7800. The Contemporary Jewish Museum is located at 736 Mission Street (between Third &
Fourth streets), San Francisco.
###