The impression of a pantomime performance is deceptive – a seasoned music professional is at the conductor’s podium. Yorgos Ziavras, Kapellmeister of the Theater Krefeld/Mönchengladbach, has a notated score in front of him. Only the orchestra is not. In his place, visitors take the seats where string players, percussionists, brass and woodwind players usually go about their business. The unusual arrangement on the middle level of the terraced abbey garden is part of the sound installation “Kunsthalle for Music” by the American artist Ari Benjamin Meyers. With the performance of the work, described by the artist himself as a “nomadic meta-institution”, the Museum am Abteiberg celebrated its 40th birthday on the anniversary of its opening, June 23rd. “Kunsthalle for Music” had previously been performed in various formats in Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Moscow and Philadelphia.
The anniversary celebrations are the prelude to the long music and culture weekend “Pop Paradiso”, which will turn the Abteiberg area into a creative experimental field for youth culture, urban art, music, sustainability and diversity up to and including Sunday, June 26th. Visitors can also take a look inside the museum free of charge until 8 p.m. on these days. This is currently particularly worthwhile, as a concept started last year is being continued with the milestone birthday: After 2021, on whose 100th birthday, Joseph Beuys was the topic, the museum’s show magazine is currently presenting in “Field Experiment #2: Brecht – Filliou” is the art collection, archive and library of the Düsseldorf art collector Erik Andersch, who died last year. The interested viewer is presented with a true treasure trove of contemporary testimonies from important players in the Fluxus movement, which since the early 1960s has expanded the concept of art that had been in force until then to include radical social, societal and political references. Absolutely worth seeing!
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Breaking down artistic boundaries, sounding out the place for music outside of the usual mediation channels of concerts, sound carriers, downloads or streaming, that is Ari Benjamin Meyers’ declared goal. He says: “Music can do so much more. Rehearsing together, people coming together. Exchange.” With the seven pieces of his project “Kunsthalle for Music Act I”, Meyers blurs the boundaries between music consumers and producers. Who is the actor, who is the audience? If you get involved with the space and the situation, the initial irritation about the conductor, who directs an imaginary orchestra with passion and verve, gives way. Then the individual components come together to form a coherent whole: the piano sounds of the composition “Vexations 2”, which echo down from the museum’s record level, combine with the human voices of the “Duet” station, which is distributed nine times over the entire area. It consists of two music stands facing each other, one of which faces the leading singer.
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The second stand is intended for those brave visitors who push themselves to become actors themselves. And lo and behold: even the inexperienced are able to practice the notated composition under professional guidance and then perform it together in two parts. Ari Benjamin is currently preparing Meyer’s Act II and Act III: an exhibition at Museum Abteiberg and a major production expanding from the museum into the city.
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Mayor Felix Heinrichs formulated a wish in his welcoming address: In the future, the Abteiberg Museum must be brought back into people’s minds more strongly. After all, architect Hollein already represented the idea of the museum as an entrance to the city. Projects such as “Kunsthalle for Music”, in connection with projects that also expand the boundaries of the museum, such as Pop Paradiso, could help.
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