VALAIS.- The Biennale Son, a major event dedicated to sound in contemporary art, returns for its second edition with a rich and ambitious program. A multidisciplinary platform, it seeks to blur the often overly rigid boundaries between artistic disciplines that are, in fact, closer than they appear. Here, everything intersects and resonates: installations, sculptures, two-dimensional works, A/V lives, films, videos, texts, performances, concerts, performing arts… sound-based and silent works, yet within which sound is always present—sometimes heard, sometimes only imagined.
Participants in the second edition of the Biennale Son: Lawrence Abu Hamdan / John Armleder / Alexandre Babel / Alexandra Bachzetsis / Vincent Barras performing John Cage and Dieter Roth, and in duo with Caroline de Cornière / Pierre Bastien / Martin Baus / Rossella Biscotti / Bernard Blistène / Julia Borderie & Éloïse Le Gallo / Alessandro Bosetti / Pauline Boudry - Renate Lorenz / Christophe Burgess / Pierre-Laurent Cassière / Catherine & Nicolas Ceresole / Lara Dâmaso / Hanne Darboven performed by Thomas Dahl / Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson / Nina Emge / Attila Faravelli / Claire Frachebourg / Alex Ghandour / Fabrice Gygi / Eric Hattan with Oliver Senn / Ed. Héros-Limite with Rudi Decelière / Marie-Caroline Hominal / Roni Horn / Tom Johnson performed by Pierre Berthet / Pauline Julier / Annika Kahrs / Victoria Keddie / Paul Kos / Camille Lacroix with Marie-Bénédicte Cazeneuve & Sig Valax / Anne Le Troter / Pierre Leguillon, Erratum Musical with Josef Albers, Richard Avedon, Ben, Harry Bertoia, Marcel Broodthaers, Corentin Canesson, John Cage, Charlotte Centelighe, Matt Connors, Pablo Diserens, Stan Douglas, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dupuy, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Charles & Ray Eames, Sylvie Eyberg & Olivia Degrez, Renée Green, Ana Jotta, Jannis Kounellis, Richard Hamilton, Takeshi Kosugi, Louise Lawler, André Messager, Annette Messager, George Nelson, Yazid Oulab, Nam June Paik, Gio Ponti, Mathias C. Pfund, Dieter Rams, Steve Roden, Qihang Li & Seokyung Kim, Dieter Roth, Erik Satie, etc. / Camille Llobet / Carsten Nicolai / Philippe Quesne / Lucy Railton / Basile Richon with Rémy Bender / Sébastien Robert / Ugo Rondinone / Ryan R / Andrea Salustri / Tomoko Sauvage / Soundwalk Collective, Invisible Landscape with Anika, Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nan Goldin, Evan Hughes, Jim Jarmusch, Natalia Lafourcade / Cally Spooner / Structurals with Noémi Büchi, Echoes of Archs, Thomas Laigle, Leoni Leoni, Mitospora, Monocolor / Raphael Stucky / Latai Taumoepeau / Lauren Tortil / Maximilien Urfer / Cindy Van Acker / Reinier van Houdt & Alessandro Bosetti / Byron Westbrook / Tiran Willemse & Melika Ngombe Kolongo (Nkisi) / Winter Family / La poésie s’honore curated by Vincent Barras with Michèle Métail, Thierry Raboud, Cia Rinne, Jonathan Dumani, Olivier Cadiot, Julien d’Abrigeon, Laura Vazquez
A program of 36 films and videos curated by associate curator Maxime Guitton with:
Robert Ashley / Ericka Beckman / James Benning / Patrick Bokanowski / Jenny Brady / Livinus & Jeep van de Bundt / Robert Cahen / Geneviève Calame / Giuseppe Chiari / Jeremy Deller / Enrique Fontanilles / Luke Fowler / Jacques Guyonnet / Louis Henderson / Peter Liechti / Joan Logue / Christian Marclay / Muriel Olesen / Charlemagne Palestine / Ben Russell / Cyrill Schläpfer / Unglee / Woody & Steina Vasulka
Over 13 weeks, more than 108 artists, duos, and collectives will invest 23 venues with proposals exploring sound in all its breadth: vocal, instrumental, electronic, environmental, documentary, poetic, or political.
The second edition, curated by Jean-Paul Felley, Director of the Biennale, and Maxime Guitton, associate curator 2025, offers a program set to surprise and captivate, building on the momentum of the inaugural edition. Sion, the capital of the event, will host the main installations, performances, and concerts at La Centrale—a vast modernist building—as well as at La Grange and La Grenette of the Ferme-Asile, the Valais Art Museum, the Lemme, and the former Penitentiary. In Martigny, the Manoir de la Ville will be devoted to Erratum Musical, a project by artist Pierre Leguillon, founder of the Musée des Erreurs.
The Biennale will also extend to partner venues including the Musée valaisan des Bisses in Ayent, the Church of Saint-Nicolas in Hérémence, Théâtre Les Halles in Sierre, EDHEA, the Fondation Opale in Lens, and the Musée de Bagnes in Le Châble.
The Biennale Son also features:
• 56 concerts and performances, including three durational performances
• 22 works created or adapted for the Biennale Son
• the first Vinyl Art Fair, entirely dedicated to labels producing vinyl and cassettes by artists active in contemporary art, and curated by Fabio Carboni & Sara Serighelli
• the third Sound Symposium, co-produced with EDHEA, the Valais School of Art
• a dedicated bookshop, KaPa Books & More, in connection with the program
• an exclusive podcast series produced by Arnaud Laporte, journalist at France Culture.
During the second edition of the Biennale Son, a new vinyl by Christian Marclay, an artist’s book by Ugo Rondinone, a journal by Annika Kahrs, and a large-format silkscreen portfolio by David Horvitz will be presented.
