Blanton Museum of Art Presents RPM (revolutions per minute) by Jennie C. Jones
New outdoor sound art installation opens April 22. The Blanton’s Butler Sound Gallery is the first-ever permanent museum exhibition space dedicated exclusively to sound art.
Austin, TX (April 20, 2026)—Beginning April 22, the Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin will present RPM (revolutions per minute) by Jennie C. Jones in its outdoor Butler Sound Gallery, launching during the museum’s annual Member Avant-Garde Party. Built from sustained tones that gradually shift and repeat on a continuous loop, the museum’s newly acquired work creates a subtle sonic atmosphere that blends with the surrounding environment, inviting visitors to experience an immersive outdoor soundscape.
Jones’ work across painting, sculpture, and sound installation has been featured in numerous prestigious solo exhibitions, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others. Trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts, the award-winning artist describes her practice as an exploration of “listening as a conceptual act.”
RPM (revolutions per minute) emerges from Jones’ long-standing investigation into how sound, its “physical residue,” and histories of listening can be translated into minimalist form. Since the late 1990s, she has broken down audio devices and acoustic ephemera such as cables, speakers, and noise-canceling instruments into sculptural lines and quiet interventions that encourage audiences to anticipate sound even in its absence, a sensibility she extends in her Acoustic Paintings series and wind-activated sculptures. In parallel, her micro-sampled audio collages take root in Black avant-garde sonic movements, challenging dominant narratives of modernism and cultural histories. RPM (revolutions per minute) reflects these ideas through sustained, looping tones that subtly direct visitors’ awareness of space while embodying the artist’s broader project of merging art and music histories.
RPM (revolutions per minute) is the first work by Jones to enter the museum’s collection.
“RPM expands the Blanton’s modern and contemporary collection’s engagement with abstraction, inviting visitors to stop and engage with art differently,” said Hannah Klemm, Blanton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “Through active listening, sustained sound can subtly reshape one’s sense of space and awareness.”
“We are so grateful to Sarah and Ernest Butler for their generous investment to make this beautiful space on our grounds possible, as well as to establish an endowment so that we can continue to commission and acquire new works of sound art for our collection. We are thrilled to bring work by the extraordinary Jennie C. Jones to the Blanton as our second Butler Sound Gallery artist and look forward to announcing the next project in this series soon, too. This is an important, dynamic part of our program that we are excited to share with our community,” said Blanton Director Simone Wicha.
Following the completion of its new grounds project in 2023, the Blanton became the first major museum to create a long-term space dedicated to sound art, thanks to a $5 million gift from Sarah and Ernest Butler, generous longtime supporters of the museum. The shaded outdoor area just north of the Michener Gallery Building offers a sensory-friendly space that advances the museum’s goal of bringing art experiences deeper into the community. In addition to supporting the development of the space, the gift from the Butlers includes an endowment to support future sound art installations, ensuring that visitors will experience the program for years to come.
Visitors can experience RPM (revolutions per minute) through winter 2027. Learn more about the Blanton’s grounds.
About the art: Jennie C. Jones, RPM (revolutions per minute), 2018, audio, 3:40 min., Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Purchase through funds provided by the Butler Sound Gallery Endowment, 2026.14
Above images: Jennie C. Jones, 2024, Photo by Taylor Miller; The Butler Sound Gallery at the Blanton Museum of Art, photo by Casey Dunn
About the Blanton Museum of Art
Founded in 1963, the Blanton Museum of Art holds the largest public collection in Central Texas with more than 22,000 objects. Recognized as the home of Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, its major collecting areas are modern and contemporary U.S. and Latin American art, Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings, and prints and drawings. The Blanton offers thought-provoking, visually arresting, and personally moving encounters with art.
Media contacts:
Kaci Baez, kaci.baez@blantonmuseum.org
(512) 471-9213