Known for his distinctive approach to music, Tarek Atoui (Beirut, Lebanon, 1980; lives and works in Paris) investigates the acoustic properties of elements such as water, air, stone, and bronze and the ways in which they absorb sound and return it with unexpected nuances. This process initiates forms of aggregation and curiosity in the visitors, who are asked to play an active, participatory role. The sonic environments created by the ensemble of the works present in the space suggest possible listening experiences and stimulate non-traditional learning processes.
After an education in music, Atoui began by exploring the properties of sound through performance, and later expanded his research into the spatiality of objects in relation to the artistic context. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with composers and artisans from various countries to invent and produce instruments with a strong sculptural imprint, combining a wide range of materials and skills. Using electronic devices and software, the artist reflects on contemporary social and political realities, revealing the importance of music and new technologies as dimensions of expression and identity. Educational values and social relations are constitutive aspects of Atoui’s practice, which often involves collaborations with various local communities and invites visitors to interact and experience his multi-sensory environments.
“Improvisation in 10 Days”, curated by Lucia Aspesi, is the title of Tarek Atoui’s exhibition. “In Milan, my proposal is an homage to improvisation”, explains the artist. Borrowing a specific term from the lexicon of music, Atoui explores the potential of composition in space, bringing the material, sculptural, architectural and relational qualities of the works into dialogue with the immaterial nature of sound and its reverberation in bodies and things. Using the Shed as a large blank canvas, the artist rearranges and recomposes works from one of his previous exhibitions, starting from the identity of the space (a place of production) and the time coordinates (the days on which the artist will set up the exhibition) and using them to “improvise” movements, harmonies, and tunings to create a collective experience in a sonic environment. This is the first time that Atoui has conceived an exhibition as an actual device capable of evolving and materializing over time in a given situation, creating a dynamic relationship between space, instruments, and people. The true potential of the project lies in its “dynamic” status, in its openness to chance.
As the artist explains, “There is no loop, there is no beginning and end in the sense of a musical composition or structure that starts and ends. There’s a cycle that is always transforming, and a relationship between instruments that is always changing”.
Tarek Atoui’s works are conceived as constantly evolving projects that change over time and adapt to the different contexts in which they are presented. The artist is often inspired by past works that are reimagined, resulting in a different poetic experience and sensibility with each reworking. His research always begins with an acoustic paradigm that is experimented with through activities such as workshops with local communities of artisans, researchers, or musicians, and then leads to the production of sculptures and installations that invite a meditative and multi-sensory approach. In his work, sound takes on material qualities and, in addition to being heard, it can be transmitted and perceived through vibration, mechanical stress on a surface, or tactile experience. The exhibition presents three bodies of work, harmoniously displayed in space and in dialogue with natural light.
The first group of works, WITHIN (2013-ongoing), is one of the artist’s longest running projects, stemming from a workshop Atoui designed and led with a community of deaf people. In these works, the artist searches for a method to perceive sound in a sensorial, visual, and performative dimension. Drawing on his background as an educator, he reflects on the act of listening and reinterprets musical sound as a language of learning. From this series of works, the exhibition includes the Souffle Continu group, consisting of Organ Within (2022), a sculpture that reinvents the traditional organ and its performative, spatial, and perceptual characteristics, and the more recent Wind House #1 and #2 (2023-24), two “wind rooms” accessible to visitors, who can experience through their bodies the sound produced by a flow of air compressed and shaped by the transparent structure.
The second corpus, Waters’ Witness (2020-23), stems from research conducted in collaboration with musician and composer Eric La Casa in various ports, including Athens, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Istanbul, Porto, Sydney, and Singapore. Experimenting with different technologies such as underwater and environmental microphones, Atoui recorded the sounds of these non-places that were once the beating heart of cities. For the version at Pirelli HangarBicocca, the artist displays several marbles from the city of Athens, now used in the restoration of ancient Greek temples.
The Rain (2023-ongoing), one of the artist’s lesser-known bodies of work, is dedicated to rain. Characterized by sophisticated forms and materials such as wood, rope, and bronze, the work is inspired by traditional Korean drum-making techniques and the craft of ceramics and paper. Atoui explores multiple sound compositions through the use of technological devices associated with the four elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—in a process that transforms the cycle of energy into new instruments and stimulates different listening experiences. As the artist reveals, “The four elements here play a fundamental role, they are the performers, and they are, I would say, at the forefront of bringing this piece to life and making it come together”.
Curated by
Lucia Aspesi
at Hangar Bicocca, Milan
until July 20, 2024