Exhibition catalogue
First venue: Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
April 24 – September 30, 2024
Abstract
Relying on the New Media Art Collection from the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, in dialogue with young Chinese artists, this exhibition explores how sonic material has inspired new artistic thoughts and experimentations in the 21st Century. The mobility and impermanence of sound has long interested artists and musicians alike as a counter-model to the regime of the visual arts. Techniques of improvisation, collective practices, sampling and collage, feedback and filtering, phasing and spacing… the infinite plasticity of sound and the many ways in which it circulates continues to question our relation to the here and now.
The title of this exhibition is borrowed from its opening work: an immersive environment by Emmanuel Lagarrigue, which addresses a liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, a zone where aural experiences may emerge with a more intense quality. Coming from various continents and cultural contexts, the 24 artists here presented explore the unexpected dimensions of sound through a wide range of innovative strategies. Outdoors and indoors, the exhibition sets a series of encounters that manifest the power and agency of sound within the phenomenology of ambient space, within our senses and our imaginaries, within our social constructs and our relationships.
Along with contemporary art works, a few historical references allow an understanding of the fascinating history of sound as a source of displacement and estrangement of the ordinary.
With Francis Alÿs, Oliver Beer, Wang Changcun, Liu Chuang, Edmond Couchot, Mat Dryhurst, Kit Fitzgerald, Bill Fontana, Lucy Gunning, Holly Herndon, Gary Hill, Tao Hui, Hassan Khan, Emmanuel Lagarrigue, Anne Le Troter, Mark Leckey, Yuko Mohri, Emeka Ogboh, Susan Philipsz, John Sanborn, Molly Soda, Zhou Tao, Naama Tsabar, Sun Wei, Ye Hui, and Samson Young.
Book content
- Introduction on the exhibition by Marcella Lista (21,000 characters)
- Introduction on the music programs by Nicolas Ballet (15,000 characters)
- Twenty-four notices by Nicolas Ballet, Philippe Bettinelli, Julie Champion, Amy Cheng, Sylvie Douala-Bell, Bastien Gallet, and Marcella Lista (36,000 characters).
- 50 to 60 illustrations (photographs of artworks and views of the exhibition).
Notices
Nicolas Ballet
- Kit Fitzgerald, John Sanborn, Ear to the Ground, 1981-1982
- Hui Ye, It was so quiet that the pins dropped could be heard…, 2011
- Mark Leckey, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, 1999
- Tao Hui, Pulsating Atom, 2019
- Sun Wei, Sound Temple, 2021
Philippe Bettinelli (philippe.bettinelli@centrepompidou.fr)
- Edmond Couchot, Michel Bret, Les Pissenlits, 1990
- Naama Tsabar, Stranger, 2017
- Molly Soda, Me Singing Stay by Rihanna, 2018
- Anne Le Troter, Parler de loin ou bien se taire, 2019
Julie Champion-Lagadec (julilagadec@gmail.com)
- Lucy Gunning, The Horse Impressionists, 1996
Amy Cheng (amy@thecube.tw)
- Francis Alÿs, Duett, 1999
- Wang Changcun, TV Waterfall, 2014
- Hassan Khan, Jewel, 2010
Sylvie Douala-Bell (sylvie.douala-bell@centrepompidou.fr)
- Emmanuel Lagarrigue, I Never Dream Otherwise Than Awake, 2006
Bastien Gallet (bastiengallet@yahoo.fr)
- Bill Fontana, Silent Echoes in the Dachstein Glacier, 2024
- Susan Philipsz, The Cuckoo’s Nest, 2011
- Emeka Ogboh, Conductors/ Oshodi Oke, 2018
Marcella Lista
- Zhou Tao, Chick speaks to duck, Pig speaks to dog, 2005
- Yuko Mohri, Parade, 2011-2017
- Samson Young, Muted Situations #22: Muted Tchaikovsky 5th, 2018
- Gary Hill, Full Circle, 1978
- Liu Chuang, Gluttonous Me, 2018
- Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst, I’m Here 17.12.2022 5 :44, 2023
- Oliver Beer, Reanimation 1 (Snow White), 2014