Listen to the show
FONDAZIONE SANDRETTO RE REBAUDENGO presents the second exhibition in their one-year programme linked to the theme of the Environment. The group exhibition, Silence. Listen to the show, invites visitors to isolate themselves and embark on an acoustic voyage across the exhibition halls of the Fondazione SRR. All works in the show will be accessible through earphones that visitors wear for the whole length of the exhibition, creating a space that is apparently silent yet in reality invaded by a multiplicity of sounds.
Silence. Listen to the show presents fifty works produced from the sixties onwards by acclaimed and emerging international artists, musicians and performers. It is an exhibition where sound is the subject of investigation, examined as a cultural artefact, used as a means of expression and explored as a sphere of aesthetic experience. Different to today’s usual approach to sound art, the exhibition does not really focus on the concept of sound itself, rather it strives to create a symphony of notes and sounds whose origins remain apparent and where sound is the narrator of events in everyday life. The audio and video works, installations and performances in the show provoke many different associations between the visual and audio worlds.
"Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at 50 m.p.h. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them, not as sound effects but as musical instruments." John Cage
Borrowing the title of John Cage’s renowned book, the exhibition highlights the way sounds and noises affect our visual perception of reality. Nowadays, a great majority of people go about their daily lives constantly accompanied by a personally compiled soundtrack on their iPods, which swallows them up, follows their every move and features in every image they see throughout the day.
Cage considered the traffic noise that came up from the Sixth Avenue to his Manhattan loft to be music. Instead today we tend to isolate ourselves, closing out the noises of reality and adding our favourite sounds to the images we like best. Silence. Listen to the show is a reflection on the strange marriage between images and sounds in our contemporary lifestyles.
Cage is therefore an emblematic figure in the exhibition, both for his revolutionary work in the music field and for the great influence that he had on bridging the gap between the disciplines for generations of musicians and artists alike.
Silence. Listen to the show is a multidisciplinary exhibition featuring artists, musicians, writers, composers and film makers who all share an interest in the mundane nature of sound.
A unique part-print part-audio catalogue to the show will be published by Electa (Milan) and will feature texts by Francesco Bonami.
ARTISTS IN THE SHOW
Adel Abdessemed, Vito Acconci, Doug Aitken, Victor Alimpiev, Aphex Twin, Micol Assael, John Baldessari, Samuel Beckett, Johanna Billing, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Janet Cardiff e George Bures Miller, Enrico Castellani, Martin Creed, Roberto Cuoghi, Jeremy Deller, Sussan Deyhim, Trisha Donnelly, Ceal Floyer, Gleen Gloud, Henrik Hakansson, David Hammons, Terence Hannum, William Hunt, Joris Ivens, Hassan Khan, Louise Lawler, Arto Lindsay, Christian Marclay, Matmos, Momus, Meredith Monk, Takeshi Murata, Carsten Nicolai, Luigi Nono, Kristin Oppenheim, Pan Sonic, Diego Perrone, Susan Philipsz, Stefano Pilia, Mika Ronkainen, Julian Rosefeldt, Anri Sala, Tino Sehgal, Johannes Stijärne e Ola Simmons, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Alberto Tadiello, Enzo Umbaca, Gillian Wearing, Artur Zmijewski
