Sound has played a significant role in the development of modern and contemporary art, from the visual references of Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian in the early 20th-century to the aural experimentations of Nam June Paik and John Cage in the 1960s.

Soundwaves: The Art of Sampling looks at a specifically late 20th-century manifestation of the conjunction of art and sound, and features works, many of which are from MCASD’s collection, by artists—Tim Bavington, Stephen Beck, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Helen Cohen, Collective Foundation, Sean Duffy, Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Christian Marclay, T. Kelly Mason, Julio César Morales, Dave Muller, Dario Robleto, Steve Roden, Alyce Santoro, Diana Thater, and Stephen Vitiello—who appropriate the musical process of sampling in their work, either through the incorporation of found sound or through visual and material references.

Exploring the relationship between sound and vision, the artists in Soundwaves cross genre and media in their exploration of sight, sound, and the translation of the audible into the visual. The artists create intensely layered compositions that are familiar and strange, old and new at the same time, and often emphasize improvisation and abstraction.