Image: Blanton Museum of Art, Austin
The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin has acquired Jennie C. Jones’s 'RPM (revolutions per minute)' for its Butler Sound Gallery, adding the 2018 audio work to the museum’s outdoor space dedicated to sound art. The acquisition was reported in a museum acquisitions round-up published by The Art Newspaper, which noted that the work will be featured in the Blanton’s sound-focused installation area.
Jones’s piece was originally commissioned for The Glass House in Connecticut. The Art Newspaper described 'RPM (revolutions per minute)' as a minimalist audio collage that runs for nearly four minutes on a loop. The work extends the artist’s practice across sound and other media, with Jones working in paintings, sculpture, installations and audio compositions. Her practice has also been framed by her own description of listening as a conceptual act.
The acquisition places Jones’s work within a setting designed specifically for sound art. The Butler Sound Gallery is an outdoor space at the Blanton, and the museum’s acquisition was supported by the Butler Sound Gallery Endowment. The gallery itself was made possible by a $5 million gift from philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler, whose support funded the creation of the space.
The Art Newspaper’s report also noted Jones’s recent prominence in museum and institutional contexts, citing her 2025 Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden commission, 'Ensemble', as another sound installation. No further details of the Blanton presentation were provided in the source material, beyond the fact that the work was acquired for the Butler Sound Gallery and will be shown there.
The acquisition was included in The Art Newspaper’s 1 June 2026 roundup of museum acquisitions, which surveys new gifts and purchases entering institutional collections worldwide. In that report, the Blanton’s purchase appeared alongside other institutional acquisitions, but the museum’s entry focused on the addition of 'RPM (revolutions per minute)' to its sound art program through February 2027.
