FRANKFURT.- Sound is an essential part of contemporary art. Yet musical instruments, which are simultaneously sculptures, represent a recent development in contemporary art that is still relatively unknown. From June 19 to September 8, 2019, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting the international group exhibition “Big Orchestra” with artworks that also perform as musical instruments. The show includes works by 16 artists: Doug Aitken, Nevin Aladağ, Allora & Calzadilla, Carlos Amorales, Tarek Atoui, Cevdet Erek, Guillermo Galindo, Hans van Koolwijk, Constantin Luser, Christian Marclay, Caroline Mesquita, Rie Nakajima, Carsten Nicolai, Pedro Reyes, Naama Tsabar, and David Zink Yi.

The playing of these sculptural instruments is the focus of the exhibition, a concept that is itself in a state of flux. For the duration of the show, the Schirn will become a temporary concert hall in which the works are activated and visitors can experience their sound live. Mobile display architecture will create space for workshops in which the sound of the instruments is explored by musicians in changing ensembles and subsequently presented in concerts. The artists will demonstrate their own works in performances. The composition Music for Exhibitions by Orm Finnendahl, created especially for the exhibition, unites samples of all the works in an algorithmically structured score that can be listened to between workshops and concerts.

The starting point for the concept is the extension of the definition of art and music by the Fluxus movement of the 1960s: happenings or actions were understood as “concerts,” because they were structured in a similar fashion to compositions and combined different media and materials with one another. The Schirn is showing the production of sound in its entirety, with the audible on a par with the visible. The artworks presented are considered hybrid objects—they are as much visual sculptures as they are musical instruments, and their activation is physical performance. Each of these musical instruments embraces the process of performance by artists, performers, or musicians, which in turn may influence the production and composition of music, as well as its reception. The exhibition features various aspects of sound, such as making music as a communicative, social exchange and its emancipatory potential, the negotiation of cultural identity, gender-normative roles, and sociopolitical conflicts, experimentation with the performative side of making music, and a challenging of the traditional separation of instrument, score, and performance.

The exhibition “Big Orchestra” is supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the Freunde der Schirn Kunsthalle e. V., and the Musikfonds e. V. with project funds from the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Philipp Demandt, director of Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: “With ‘Big Orchestra,’ the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt adds a central aspect to previous sound exhibitions and focuses on the production of sound in its entirety. The ever-changing show emerges as a process: the visual aspects of the sculptures combine with the acoustic and performative qualities of the artworks, which are developed by musicians during the course of the exhibition, and can then be experienced live by our visitors.”

Matthias Ulrich, curator of the exhibition, explains: “The shift from visual to acoustic in contemporary art is not as peripheral as often assumed—rather, exhibitions without sound are now the exception. At the same time, this change in reception rarely leads to more than a passing comment. This happens despite the fact that the sound not only guides the viewer, but also rather fundamentally determines the perception of any work of art. This is where the exhibition ‘Big Orchestra’ comes in, dedicating a long overdue, entire exhibition to sound and its immanent quality of absolute presence, of permanent becoming.”

THEMES AND WORKS OF THE EXHIBITION—A SELECTION
The exhibition “Big Orchestra” presents works by 16 contemporary artists, positioned between sculpture or installation and musical instrument. Played in a live setting during regular exhibition hours, these sculptural instruments can be experienced spatially and acoustically by the visitors. The mobile exhibition architecture allows ever-new combinations of the works. At the same time, common themes connect the individual positions.

A particular motif in many of the works is music-making as a communicative, social exchange that picks up where other forms of language fail. Everyday items are appropriated, such as in Onyx Music Table (2011) by multimedia artist Doug Aitken (* 1968, Redondo Beach, California). He has replaced the top of a table with a geometrically arranged mosaic of onyx alabaster panels, which can be played with mallets, similar to a lithophone. The sound sculpture encourages a musical extension of table talk. Nevin Aladağ (* 1972, Van, Turkey) examines the idea and form of the historic music room, where people meet to make music. For Music Room, Brussels (2015), the artist has mounted strings onto pieces of furniture and thus transformed them into musical instruments. Rie Nakajima (* 1976, Yokohama, Japan) uses simple means to create unpredictable kinetic sound effects from everyday objects. The original purpose might still be clearly visible in some of her objects, while others are equipped with windup mechanisms or are wired to tiny electric motors. Nakajima activates the objects one after another, gradually unfolding their sound and movement potential. For the exhibition, she has developed a new work, Floor (2019), which she will perform at the Schirn.

The traditional view of the separation of instrument, score, and performance is continually put to the test and reinterpreted. The focus is thereby on the performative aspect of music-making. The work Prêt-à-Porter (2010) by Christian Marclay (* 1955, San Rafael, California) is based on a collection of found garments on which musical notes are printed. The sound emerges from the interaction of performers who wear these clothes, and musicians who read and interpret the notes from their bodies. The score in this context acts as a loose framework for musical improvisations and allows a variety of interpretations. The artist duo Allora & Calzadilla (Jennifer Allora, * 1974, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Guillermo Calzadilla, * 1971, Havana, Cuba) experiments in a number of works with sound and music, fusing cultural, historical, and geopolitical issues. The Schirn presents Lifespan (2014), centered on a stone that is over a billion years old. During the course of the exhibition, an approach to the ancient rock is revealed in a performance, where three vocal performers interpret a score of whistling and hissing sounds specifically written by renowned American composer David Lang.

Some artists examine other forms of play and reception of music, or they include the sense of touch and sight. For his project WITHIN, Tarek Atoui (* 1980, Beirut, Lebanon), together with deaf and hearing-impaired collaborators, developed musical instruments devised in such a way that all are able to understand the sound and can actually make music with the works. With these works, the artist will develop and perform a concert in the exhibition with musicians as well as deaf and hearing-impaired individuals. The artist and musician Cevdet Erek (* 1974, Istanbul, Turkey) examines the imitation of natural phenomena through artistic means. In his work SSS (Shore Scene Soundtrack) (2006–2019), with which he won the Nam June Paik Award, visitors can create the impression of the sound of the seaside with the touch of their hands on a piece of carpet.

The negotiation of cultural identity and sociopolitical conflicts plays a central role in several of the exhibited artworks. David Zink Yi (* 1973, Lima, Peru), for instance, works intensively with the complexity and rich history of Cuban music, which apparently combines African influences with elements of jazz. The minimalist sculptures of Being the Measure (2017) serve to create polyrhythmic sounds and are devised as percussive musical instruments. The work Life in the Folds (2017) by Carlos Amorales (* 1970, Mexico City, Mexico) was created for the Mexican Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017 and explores the themes of migration and language. In numerous paper works and ceramic flutes, so-called ocarinas, the artist has created an abstract alphabet. Articulated in writing or music, this language is impossible to decipher using common methods. Guillermo Galindo (* 1960, Mexico City, Mexico) presents his sculpture Ángel exterminador / Exterminating Angel (2015), made from the remains of a border fence. It was created as part of Border Cantos, a joint project with Richard Misrach, where the two artists collected objects thrown away along the border between Mexico and the United States of America in order to build instruments. The artist will activate the sculpture in a ritual performance using further instruments. Naama Tsabar (* 1982, Tel Aviv, Israel), in her series Work On Felt, examines gender-normative roles and the stereotypes of art with female and male connotations respectively. Large-format, monochrome felt mats, their formalism reminiscent of the Minimal Art of the 1960s, are tensioned using a piano string. In her performances, the artist works programmatically with female musicians who play on the works with their hands or with a bow.

Other works in the exhibition focus on improvisation, spontaneity, and coincidence. Carsten Nicolai (* 1965, Chemnitz, Germany), working under the pseudonym alva noto, has produced numerous sounds as a musician and, since the 1990s, has compiled a comprehensive audio archive of electronic sounds. He makes it available on vinyl records with his bausatz noto ∞ (color version) (1998/2015). Four turntables and headphones in the exhibition invite the visitor to combine sound loops of selected vinyl records into tracks in ever-new variations. The unusual instruments of the project KlangMøbil by Hans van Koolwijk (* 1952, Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands) were developed in experimental workshops together with an international team of musicians and composers. On the assumption that the performance of music changes according to space and situation, the instruments combine several possibilities of use. The integration of mobility and flexibility plays a central role in the design.