David Salle’s Ariel and Other Spirits was presented in conjunction with the Met premiere of Thomas Adès’s The Tempest. Salle immersed himself in both Adès’s music and Shakespeare’s poetry while creating the works for this show, which included a suite of paintings and watercolors. “I decided to concentrate on one or two images from the play: the tempest itself—the storm and shipwreck and its aftermath—and the strange, moody island full of spirits,” Salle said. “I was interested in the jumpy, changeable, spirits-flying-through-the-air kind of feeling that I found in the play—and the music.”
