Through March and April, two cities will present works by London-based artist Oliver Beer whose background in music and art informs his exploration of the intersection between sound, architecture and space as expressed through performance, film and sculpture – with an accent on auditory resonances. Focusing on the history and memory of both objects and sound within the context of the gallery space, Beer’s audial performances are intimate and all-inclusive; ‘sound penetrates matter indiscriminately, and permeates the structures of our bodies and the objects that surround us,’ explains the artist.
London Oliver Beer, Resonance Project, 2014, architectural acoustic performance. Installation view at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London. Photograph: Oliver Beer
In Melbourne, Anna Schwartz Gallery will house Beer’s first solo exhibition which features the latest edition of his Recomposition series, including sculptural paintings alongside a sound installation that resonates with the architecture of the gallery space through a series of installed speakers. While ‘Wonderland’ at Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) revisits and reimagines the iconic moment in Disney’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (1951) when Alice falls down the rabbit hole through a sequence of children’s drawings in Alice Falling (2014).
As part of the 21st Biennale of Sydney, Beer presents his latest rendition of Resonance Project (2007-current), an ongoing film and performance work exploring architecture as opposed to object as musical instrument. Beer utilises his self-developed technique in which the empty spaces of a building are stimulated by the vocals of classically trained singers; the echo of their songs manipulated by the ‘voice’ of the building – in this case, Sydney’s Opera House.
These three exhibitions represent the wide and varied terrain of Beer’s oeuvre and a unique opportunity to experience sound and architecture in a different light.
21st Biennale of Sydney
16 March to 11 June, 2018
Sydney
Anna Schwartz Gallery
24 March to 21 April, 2018
Melbourne
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
5 April to 7 October, 2018
Melbourne
