THE GAY CHORUS:
NO TIME AT ALL
Sound installation by Matthew Leifheit
JUNE 1—30, 2025
New York City AIDS Memorial
76 Greenwich Avenue, NYC
About the Project
The songs presented in this sound installation-as-recital are sourced from an archive of gay men’s chorus performance and rehearsal video recordings from the decade preceding the advent of highly active antiretroviral treatments (HAART) for HIV/AIDS in the United States (1985–1995).
At the time of this installation, the artist Matthew Leifheit has preserved 46 hours and 22 minutes of performance footage, drawn from 53 VHS tapes digitized during 2023 and 2024 in archives spanning New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Washington, DC. Given VHS recordings’ inherently limited archival lifespan, much of the audio exhibits distortions and degradations resulting from the passage of time and the deterioration of magnetic tape.
The sound installation, No Time at All, conceived by Leifheit for the New York City AIDS Memorial, liberates long-unheard voices from archives in cities across the United States, uniting them in an hour-long recital that will loop daily throughout June 2025. Utilizing directional audio technology, the installation is meticulously designed to remain confined within the memorial structure, allowing the sound to drift subtly from overhead and envelop the space in a reflective auditory experience, a fitting reflection to happen during LGBTQ+ Pride Month.
About the Artist
Matthew Leifheit is an American photographer, magazine editor, and professor based in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and the Yale School of Art, Leifheit is Editor-in-Chief of MATTE Magazine, the journal of emerging photography he has published since 2010. Leifheit's photographs have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Aperture, TIME, and Artforum, and have been exhibited internationally. His work has been supported by residencies at the Corporation of Yaddo and The Watermill Center, receiving grants from the New York State Cultural Council and the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale, where he was awarded the Richard Benson Prize in 2017. He is currently full-time faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.
Location
The Gay Chorus can be heard at the New York City AIDS Memorial, located at Greenwich Avenue and West 12th Street, New York.
Support
Support for public programming at the New York City AIDS Memorial is provided, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The New York City AIDS Memorial additionally thanks Phillip A. Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons.
This installation was made with the support of Powerhouse Arts.
No Time At All is exhibited through NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program.
All images courtesy of the artist.