Opening: January 17, 2019, 7pm
Exhibition: January 18 - February 3, 2019
When there is nothing to hear, so much starts to sound.
Silence is not the absence of sound but the beginning of listening.
Salomé Voegelin: Listening to Noise and Silence –
Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art. 2010.
Tacet, from Latin tacere, is a playing instruction in music. If it appears in a score, the instrumentalist or singer is required to pause during the marked interval – to remain silent.
Absence, silence and the idiosyncratic power of imagination and memory are performed in the first institutional solo exhibition of the US-American artist and composer – Ari Benjamin Meyers – in Germany. In Meyers’ enactment, the visitor enters a staged situation rather than an exhibition space. She or he inevitably becomes part of the scenario invoked in Tacet. Meyers – who in his work explores, transgresses and shifts the boundaries between the disciplines of music and art – combines in the Kasseler Kunstverein aspects of immersive theater with questions of contemporary art and music.
The installation refers to a selection of performances by the artist, all of which are missing the corresponding characteristics of music, sound and movement. Two voices eventually break through the silence in Tacet: the voice of the peculiar archivist performed by art historian Dr. Jörn Schafaff, and that of the visitor her- or himself.
Curated by Judith Waldmann.
"Ari Benjamin Meyers - Tacet" at Kasseler Kunstverein will be followed by the extensive solo exhibition "Ari Benjamin Meyers - In Concert" (March 1– April 14, 2019) at the OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni, Turin, Italy.
The exhibition in Turin is curated by Valentina Lacinio and Judith Waldmann.
A catalogue by Corraini Edizioni, Milan, Italy, will be published on the occasion of the project of the two institutions.
The Kasseler Kunstverein and the OGR Turin are grateful for the generous support by Esther Schipper, Berlin.