LUCERNE.- As an artist, composer and performer, Maya Dunietz (*1981) combines in her works classical music and the fine arts, installation and concert, sound and rhythm. What is more, the viewers’ heartbeat, breath, bird song or the daydreams of discarded pianos converge in her work. Maya Dunietz’ approach in postmodern-avant-garde, her work can be humorous, tender and also harsh—but it is also a friendly invitation to us to become involved with all our senses and to hear with our whole body.

The Israeli artist finds inspiration in musical traditions all over the world, or in nature. The behaviour of a swarm of fish, birds or insects flows into her work, as does the Sami joik, the monotone-guttural singing of the indigenous people of Lapland. The connecting element is her work on sound, on the world-embracing sound experience. Maya Dunietz’ projects range from small gestures that expand the rules of a ceremony in a concert hall, to performances with mass participation. While a single piano, as if moved by an invisible hand, plays a new composition by the artist and thus tells of presence in absence, in another room a herd of decrepit pianos has gathered. In the sound installation 17 Chilling Mammoths (2022) the instruments snort, drone and roar like the ice-age animals. By means of an ingenious electronic control system the relics of a bourgeois epoch become sound sculptures, moving between which we can ponder the passing of time, the roar of the world, isolation and community.

We perceive anything that makes sounds, moves, breathes or pulsates as animated, therefore not only the pianos, but also the throbbing shiny membrane in 25Hz–25fps (2022), the Brain on a Plate (2022) or the Mechanical Lungs (2022) take on something creature-like. At the same time, the artist plays with the contrast between consonance and discord, synchronous and asynchronous rhythms, sounds and movements. Boom (2024), on the other hand, is based on a performance during which the artist sings while a projection of herself is superimposed on her. As a result, her outlines blur while, as if caught in a loop, she tells of being embroiled in a kind of nightmare. Maya Dunietz often creates site-specific works. In December 2023 she took part in the traditional Küssnacht Claus Hunt. The highpoint of this Central Swiss St. Nicholas cus- tom is a night-time procession involving hundreds of hostages, bells, cow horns, wind instru- ments and colourful lanterns. Using her audio recordings of the procession, Maya Dunietz has now created a many-voiced sound installation for the Kunstmuseum Luzern.

The exhibition title Swarm points to a group. The word swarm contains “warm”, i.e., the warmth of tones, people and encounters. But the word also contains “war”. Maya Dunietz’ exhibition enables visitors to withstand such ambivalences together in the protected space of the museum, to share anxiety and grief, but not to despair.

Curated by Fanni Fetzer