Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen presents Anri Sala, an exhibition on view 2 November 2012–3 February 2013.
Music is a regular element in many people’s everyday lives. Music can subdue other sounds, set the pace or put us in a particular mood. Health research and various branches of science study the significance of music—and so do some artists.
The Albanian-born artist Anri Sala (b. 1974) works with film. He is aware of the influence of music on people, and he draws on this frequently in his work.
For the exhibition, Louisiana has produced an App for the iPad which features an introductory text, short texts on the eight works in the exhibition and articles, as well as photo illustrations or film clips of the eight works on exhibition.
Anri Sala is one of the foremost filmmakers in contemporary art. His fields of interest are political reality and human relations. Besides the moving images in Sala’s films, their sound-universe helps to create a special experience; the music is a central element in the dramatic structure of the narrative.
Anri Sala knows what music can do to a narrative and to us: that music and sound waves affect us physically. The exhibition includes four films, ranging musically from free improvisation to classical and popular music.
The experience of the exhibition’s film works is a physical one. In the work Long Sorrow, an evocative saxophone solo envelopes the viewer. In 1395 Days without Red, the orchestra’s Tchaikovsky symphony intensifies the onscreen drama experienced by a woman on her perilous journey through the streets of war-torn Sarajevo and transports the observer to a state of agonizing tension. In two other films, the drum is the musical motif of choice. After 3 Minutes is a silent film and focuses on the visualization of rhythm and temporal displacements. Answer Me shows a dialogue between a woman and a man in which the women speaks with words and the man communicates with drumbeats.
Anri Sala is also aware of the structuring qualities of music, not only in music itself, but also in the elements indirectly related to sound. Tempo and measure, rhythm and repetition, pauses and silence—these are musical elements that concern the artist and which are instrumental in his works, both visually and aurally.
The use of music opens up a universe of understanding free of linguistic limitations. The works are short on words, but rich in narrative.
Anri Sala was born in Albania in 1974 and trained at the National Academy of Arts in Tirana, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing. The artist currently lives in Berlin.
Sala has exhibited internationally at institutions like Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Serpentine Gallery, London; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Canada; MOCA/Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; ARC/Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Kunsthalle Wien. He has received several awards, including the Absolute Art Award 2011 and the Young Artist Prize at the Venice Biennale in 2001. In 2013 he will be representing France at the Venice Biennale.
The following works will be shown at the exhibition: Long Sorrow, 2005 (HD video, stereo sound); Eversion, 2009 (photography); Title Suspended, 2008 (kinetic sculpture); After 3 Minutes, 2007 (video, without sound); 1395 Days without Red, 2011 (film, sound); The Breathing Line, 2012 (paper/leporello); Doldrums, 2008 (installation); Answer Me, 2008 (HD video projection).
Special catalogue: an app for the iPad
For the exhibition the Louisiana Museum has produced an app for the iPad. It features an introductory text by Sanne Krogh Groth, lecturer at Roskilde University, short texts on the eight works in the exhibition and reference articles by among others Michael Fried, art critic, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, art historian and director of the Serpentine Gallery, London. In addition, the works in the exhibition are represented either by photo illustrations or film clips.
Louisiana Museum
of Modern Art, Copenhagen
3050 Humlebæk, Denmark
www.louisiana.dk
