No Wind Shuts Eyes Open

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andrea geyer

song for museum galleries.

Lyrics: Andrea Geyer
Music: Lauren Denitzio

Reminiscent of a ballad or rally song, No Wind Shuts Eyes Open consists of a chorus and four short verses that are meant to be sung in museum galleries by amateur singers alone or in a group. Performers are invited to interpret or adapt the song to their environment, considering, for example, the artworks in their proximity.

An early version of the song was a component of Time Tenderness, a site-specific performance commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, as part of the inauguration of its new building. Sung by three performers in twelve galleries of the collection exhibition America Is Hard to See, this version of the song invoked Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Juliana Force’s vision for the museum, which emphasized the role of culture in shaping our understanding of history. In 2017, Geyer rewrote part of the song, adapting it for museums more broadly. The lyrics and a recording are available on the artist’s website to encourage impromptu performances in museum galleries by anyone at any time. When Geyer’s work is on view in solo or group exhibitions, she has worked with museum staffs to perform the song weekly in collection galleries.

Lyrics:

Imagine yourself a woman of fire
Bright in the moon and in dawn’s first light
Watching her sun rise higher and higher
Take on a timekeepers visionary right.

No darkness halts culture
revolutions in sight
No wind shuts eyes open
stops minds in mid flight
No hiding of power
In bodies of art,
Revealing us time in present at last,
Revealing us time in present at last.

Museums arise from the power of voices,
Harboring those who can’t help but speak
Imagining views and radical choices
Offer new freedoms for us to seek.

Imagine this place for us all to gather
Hold our difference brave without fear
Unbind the rules that frame our bodies
Generate wildness for hunger to rear.

Study right now, resist calls to order,
Open your mind and feel things to see.
Much needed in times full of new borders
Museums are places for us to be.