Opening Nexus
For NEXUS, Galerie Mario Mazzoli has gathered works by 6 international sound artists: Hanna Hartman (SE), Cecilia Jonsson (NO), Edith Kollath (DE), Chelsea Leventhal (US), and Tamaki Watanabe | Walter Zurborg (JP/DE). All employ sound as a means of harmonizing the axes of dialectic present in their works, and illustrate the wide range of object-based SoundArt.
Ever since sound escaped from the confines of music, it has informed a nexus in which artists from different backgrounds and disciplines can explore its time-bound and ephemeral possibilities. Practitioners from painting, kinetic art, the natural sciences, textile design, fashion, literature, theatre, sculpture and electroacoustic music now employ sound as a key element in their hybrid artistic works.
The artists assembled for this exhibition exemplify this diversity, offering pieces that showcase a wide spectrum of skills, ideas and approaches. Explorations that range from pre-recorded compositions, hacked noise, amplified friction and electromagnetic noises to sounds only implied, engage in a dialogue with motion, material, object, and concept.
In all of these very different works – made of diverse materials, driven by different mechanisms and exploring a variety of conceptual ideas – sound is critical. Sound in all these works occupies the fulcrum position in multiple convergences of forms, and acts as the knot which ties together a visual and conceptual conversation. This variety exemplifies the nexus quality essential to SoundArt, and throws into stark relief the hybrid network structure endemic to current artistic practice.
