This essay was written in conjunction with Margaret Cogswell's RIVER FUGUES: Moving the Water(s), on view at CUE Art Foundation April 26 - May 31, 2014.

Margaret Cogswell’s two installations—Moving the Water(s):  Ashokan Fugues (2014) and Moving the Water(s):  Wyoming River Fugues(2012)—play sound and image off one another to show the social and physical effects of water’s commodification on the land and citizens of the United States. Drawing on documents, interviews and historical records from the past hundred years in New York and Wyoming, these works present an immersive visual and aural score regulated by a metronomic beat.