The Met Cloisters’ Site-Specific Sonic Installation by Gerard & Kelly

An Italian disco fever dream, artist duo Gerard & Kelly’s two-night, site-specific installation at The Met Cloisters—Saints at a Disco—wove together contributions from vocal ensemble The New Consort and scholar, music archivist, and DJ Disco Bambino. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and developed by Gerard & Kelly Foundation, the sound-and-movement work conversed with The Met Cloisters’ exhibition “Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages” open now through March 29.

“This the first part of a multilayered project that highlights disco as a sanctuary, but also brings together the spiritual, mystic experience that you have at a discotheque with the ones you have at religious institutions,” Beppe Savoni, the curator behind Disco Bambino, shares with Surface. “My role was to play vinyls in the crypt, alongside the sarcophagi, with everything converted into a disco.” While Savoni primarily played Italian disco, with an audience positioned on a balcony above, The New Consort performed Gregorian a cappella renditions of disco classics like Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” and “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” by Sylvester nearby. Throughout, dancers mimicked the poses of the sculptures within “Spectrums of Desire.” Ultimately, this was just a prelude—with more acts to be unveiled.