Artist: Peter Doig

Serpentine presents a new project by Peter Doig that explores the role of music, film, and sites of communal gathering, listening and creative exchange within his practice.

Transforming the gallery into a listening space, House of Music brings together recent paintings and, for the first time, integrates sound into Doig’s work. The exhibition features two sets of rare, restored analogue speakers, originally designed for cinemas and large auditoriums. Music selected by the artist – from his substantial archive of vinyl records and cassette tapes accumulated over decades – plays through a set of ‘high fidelity’ 1950s wooden Klangfilm Euronor speakers.

Each painting in the exhibition engages with music in a different way: some depict spaces where music is played or heard, others show musicians performing or people dancing. Many of the works were created during Doig’s years in Trinidad (2002–21), a period that deepened his relationship with music through sound-system culture and cinema. Blending personal memory, found photographs, and imagined scenes, these paintings are shaped by the wider cultural context of Trinidad. The exhibition will also include new paintings, which Doig created specifically for this show in his London studio.

At the center of the exhibition is an original Western Electric / Bell Labs sound system, produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Developed to respond to the demands of modern movie sound, this extremely rare ‘loud speaking telephone’ consists of valve amplifiers and mains-energised field-coil loudspeakers, which were designed specifically to herald in the new era of ‘talking movies’. These speakers were salvaged from derelict cinemas across the UK by Laurence Passera, with whom Doig has collaborated closely on this project. Laurence Passera is a London-based expert and devoted enthusiast of cinematic sound systems. The speakers offer a unique listening experience due to the technical mastery achieved in their construction that places them as the great grandfathers of modern ‘hi-end’ audio.

Envisaged as a multi-sensory environment, visitors are invited to pause and linger as they look and listen, transforming the gallery into a place of contemplation, reflection and conversation. The title House of Music, refers to lyrics of the song Dat Soca Boat by Trinidadian calypsonian musician Shadow, who Doig admires and has depicted in his paintings over the years. Shadow, 2019 – a portrait of the musician in his iconic skeleton suit is also included in the exhibition. On Sundays, the space will be activated by Sound Service, a series of live listening sessions. Musicians, artists and collectors – including Nihal El Aasar, Olukemi Lijadu, Ed Ruscha, Samuel Strang and Duval Timothy – will share selections from their collections on the analogue systems. Sound Service is imagined as an integral part to the project that aims to expand the registers of experience in House of Music, foster dialogues through the act of shared listening, and construct a sonic landscape of London These informal residencies are meant to extend the exhibition’s ideas: sound as memory, shared listening as gathering, the speaker as both sculpture and conduit.

Sound Service evenings will invite special guests to share their selected tracks and audio samples responding to one another in new and unexpected acoustic exchanges in front of a live audience. Participants will include Lizzi Bougatsos, Dennis Bovell, Brian Eno, Andrew Hale, Linton Kwesi Johnson and more to be announced.