Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to present the exhibition Anna Craycroft: Tuning the Room, on view January 28 – April 16, 2017. A public opening reception, featuring an acoustic event: “Tuning the Room” by Gregory Lenczycki and Ken Goerres, takes place Saturday, January 28, 2-4pm.

In acoustical engineering, “tuning the room” is a technique for measuring the specific sound properties of an enclosed space and then adapting the environment to improve its acoustic reflections. New York-based artist Anna Craycroft applies this technique both literally and metaphorically to the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design for her exhibition Tuning the Room, open from January 28 to April 16, 2017. Craycroft’s exhibition asks that we consider how the specific characteristics of an environment shape our experience within it, and how we become attuned in return. It invites us to ask questions about our reciprocal relationships beyond the exhibition. How do we tune our communities, our institutions, our countries, and how do they tune us in return?

The measure and alterations of Craycroft’s “room tuning” are framed in relation to its setting within the art gallery of an art school. In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, and in anticipation of the exhibition runtime falling during the first months of the new administration, Tuning the Room is a proposal to pay attention to the role that art and art education play in how voices are heard.

Craycroft’s site-specific installation fills the 3,500 square foot space of Ben Maltz Gallery, dividing it into two discrete spaces with contrasting perceptual effects. In one half of the gallery sound and light are absorbed by hand-dyed fabric acoustical panels and soft sculpture. In the other half sound and light are reflected by a chrome vinyl mural and aluminum seating. The absorptive side allows for voices to be heard clearly, and invites gatherings and discussion. The reflective side incites reverberation, motion, and outwardness. Tuning the Room is presented as an experimental tool for engaging with ideas of behavior, voice, reception, tuning, and the transfer of knowledge and energy.

Over the course of the exhibition, a variety of programs will take place inside the exhibition space that respond to this adapted environment. The events engage the teachers and students of Otis College and are open to the public at large. A working calendar—occupying the title wall of the exhibition entrance as well as online—will act as a visible tool to the Otis College and LA community, describing the activities occurring in the space.

Anna Craycroft lives and works in New York City. Mining fields like education, cinema, psychology, literature and art history in her practice, she examines cultural models for fostering individuality. Through drawings, paintings, videos, sculptures, furniture, installations, books, workshops, or curatorial projects she works thematically on a single thesis over a series of exhibitions.

Craycroft has had solo shows at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Portland Oregon, the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin Texas, Tracy Williams Ltd in NYC, Le Case del Arte in Milan Italy, and a two-persons exhibition at Redcat Gallery in Los Angeles, Sandroni Rey in Los Angeles and the Fundacio Miro in Barcelona.


In November 2016, the artist debuted a major new commission, The Earth Is a Magnet, as part of the ICA Boston exhibition, The Artist’s Museum. Notable group exhibitions include Champs Elysees at Palais de Tokyo Paris, France, and PS1’s Greater New York 2005. She has also received commissions for public sculpture from Art in General, Socrates Sculpture Park NYC, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center NYC, and from Den Haag Sculptuur, the Hague Netherlands.