2014- 2017 variable dimensions
For The Reverse Sessions , the artist reversed the order in which instruments are usually created, taking the sounds of a collection of ethnic musical instruments from The Dahlem Museum as the starting point. The artist used the audio recordings of live performances that he wrote and directed, to collaborate with instrument makers on imagining and building the objects that could have generated these recordings. Without involving any images, Atoui proposed to engage with sound directly — contrary to the path of ethnomusicology that studies the shape and mechanism of an instrument with an emphasis on its cultural and social context. The Reverse Sessions is the result of this collaboration: eight original instruments that combine string, wind and percussion, which were activated during performances and rehearsals that took place over the duration of Atoui’s five-week exhibition at Kurimanzutto gallery.
Tarek Atoui is an artist and electroacoustic composer working with sound performance. The artist engineers complex and inventive instruments as well as arranges and curates interventions, concerts, performances, and workshops. His practice develops from extensive research into music history and instrumentation, revolving around large-scale, collaborative performances that explore new methods of production. The artist’s work is centrally concerned with the ongoing reflection on the instrument and the act of performing as a multifaceted, open, and dynamic process. The orchestrated performances are mostly improvised, but are always grounded in a meticulous investigation of sound archives and collections. Concerned with education and social connection, Atoui’s projects explore sustained methodologies in which deaf people can experience and perceive sound. Using custom-built electronic instruments and computers, Atoui references current social and political realities, revealing music and new technologies as powerful components of expression and identity.
In conversation with Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez Together they will talk about Marwa Arsanios’ last video “ Falling is not collapsing, falling is extending “, 2016, presented recently at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), that looks into the garbage crisis in Beirut and the city’s recent real estate boom...
Silent Rooms, Silent Memories: “Flowers” by Drama Box | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Drama Box May 16, 2019 By Akanksha Raja (1,155 words, 5-minute read) It’s a series of plastic white flower-fans lining the fence of 74 Jalan Kelabu Asap that lets me know that I’ve arrived at the site of Drama Box’s first work of 2019, Flowers , an experiential installation set in a quaint two-storey landed house in Chip Bee Gardens...
With the war-torn Beirut cityscape as its backdrop—urban alleys, glistening beaches, abandoned buildings—Eric Baudelaire’s complex film, The Ugly One , unfolds in a time and place that vacillates among revolutionary narratives of the past, the fragile and ever-changing political situation of the present, and attempts to piece together the memories of those that live, or once lived, in the city...
Arima’s free brushstrokes gesture towards traditions in Expressionist painting, and Ticket could be seen as an attempt at “pure painting” in which the aesthetics of the medium supersede content...
Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Courtesy of Syarifah Nadhirah August 12, 2021 By Rahmah Pauzi (1,300 words, 5-minute read) I had forgotten how loaded the words “how are you,” or “apa khabar,” can be...
Floral art by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and other artists on display at private Deji Art Museum in Nanjing, China | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more The exhibition ‘Nothing Still About Still Lifes: Three Centuries of Floral Compositions’ at Nanjing;s Deji Art Museum features more than 100 modern and contemporary artworks, including (above) “Les Amoureux au Bouquet de Fleurs” (1935-1937), by Marc Chagall...
Vertical Horizon by Wito Wibowo addresses a media scandal in 2010 that took over the cultural milieu of Indonesia...
Weekly Picks: Singapore (25 June - 1 July 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Singapore June 25, 2018 Chinatown Crossings by Drama Box 22 June – 18 August 2018 Experience Chinatown through an Indian man named Kumalan who grew up in Chinatown’s shophouse during the 1960s and 1970s...