Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to announce Seven studies on the circulation of microsamples, a sound performance by Tarek Atoui on November 08, from 6 to 8 pm at Goethestraße 2/3, Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Tarek Atoui is a Lebanese sound artist and composer. At the core of his work is an ongoing reflection on the notion of the instrument and on the act of performance as a complex, open and dynamic process.
The Un-drum series that he first presented in 2009 in Sharjah, New York and Munich, articulated the notions of gesture, instrument, sampling and composition in original and personal ways; it offered physically engaged and sonically intense solo performances, often played in outdoor environments and public spaces. Recently, for dOCUMENTA 13, Atoui initiated a 5 months long project for which he gave 21 individual and collective performances and built his Metastable Circuit instrument, an autonomous instrument that allowed him improvisation out of thousands of microsamples he created and collected since he started music. In 2011, commissioned by Performa 5 and produced by the Sharjah Art Foundation, Atoui started On and From Tarab, a research and series of performances inspired by classical Arab music and based on AMAR foundation’s archive of early Arab music recordings.
Since this project, Tarek Atoui started thinking of new modes and strategies of collective listening, composition and performance, working on long duration forms. Notions such as environment, space and 'place', which he had deliberately chosen to discard in earlier pieces, have become new components for Atoui’s performance and score writing. His latest work, WITHIN (Sharjah Biennale 2013) is a six month long piece that marks these changes.
This performance will be the first intervention by Tarek Atoui in an art space in Berlin. He conceived a specific project for the newly opened gallery at Goethestraße 2/3, which will involve the volume of the space and its acoustics.
For Seven studies on the circulation of microsamples, a 6-channel sound system will be placed in the main sections of the gallery, and Atoui will build an instrument that he will play in the centre of the space. This instrument will allow him to disseminate sounds in fragmentary or homogenous ways, and to shoot sound particles extremely quick from one point of the space to another, almost beyond perceptual abilities. This sound circulation will create different virtual spaces in the gallery, alternatively or simultaneously, and the audience will be invited to move, follow the sound and experience the resonances created between Atoui’s physicality and the movement of sound.
Seven studies on the circulation of microsamples will be structured in seven chapters of 15 minutes each, which sections and score will be announced on the evening of the performance. Each of these chapters is actually a sonic model, which in the frame of Atoui’s work, could be extended, interpreted, played and applied to collective performance.
Tarek Atoui was born in Lebanon in 1980 and moved to France in 1998, where he studied sound art and electro-acoustic music. In 2006, he released his first solo album on the esteemed Mort Aux Vaches series for Staalplaat Records and in 2008 he served as artistic director of the STEIM Studios in Amsterdam, a center for research and development of new electronic musical instruments. He has presented his work internationally including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2010); the 9th and 11th Sharjah Biennials, Sharjah (2009/2013); La Maison Rouge, Paris (2010); the Mediacity Biennial, Seoul (2010); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2010); Performa 11, New York (2011); dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012); the Serpentine Gallery, London (2012) and Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2012-13). Tarek Atoui will be part of the artistic team of the 8th Berlin Biennale (May-August 2014).
A video of a performance by Tarek Atoui at the opening of documenta 13 can be seen at: https://vimeo.com/76210464
Upcoming exhibitions and art fair participations:
November 10, 2013 – January 18, 2014, Joan Mitchell, Bleibtreustraße 45, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Opening: November 10, 11 am-5 pm
November 10 – December 21, 2013, REMEMBER EVERYTHING : 40 Years Galerie Max Hetzler, Oudenarder Straße 16-20, Berlin-Wedding, Opening: November 10, 11 am-5 pm
November 23, 2013 – January 18, 2014, Christoph Niemann, Goethestraße 2/3, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Opening: November 23, 6-8 pm
ART BASEL, MIAMI BEACH
December 05 - 08, 2013, Preview December 04
