19 Mar 2011

What Got You Here, Won't get You There at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

The Icelandic artist and musician Egill Sæbjörnsson, who lives in Berlin, combines elements of installation and performance, video and live music in his works. In complex, poetically narrative spatial constellations, he himself becomes part of the situation, often together with other artists. Animation, video projection, live music, sound, drawings and the use of everyday objects coalesce in multilayered stories, in which Sæbjörnsson shows an affinity for the absurd as he interweaves the various levels of reality.

Music and sound are an integral component of Egill Sæbjörnsson's work. In his installations and performances he playfully questions the relationship between notation, instrument, musician and sound. In »What Got You Here, Won't Get You There«, to be made in collaboration with the Brazilian actor and director Marcia Moraes, he will take up this particular aspect of his work and explore it in a multidimensional performance | installation. The work is being created as part of the »Works of Music by Visual Artists« series, which Freunde Guter Musik Berlin has presented in collaboration with the Nationalgalerie Berlin since 1999 and, since 2002, with MaerzMusik – Festival of Contemporary Music of the Berliner Festspiele.

Commissioned and produced by Freunde Guter Musik Berlin e.V. in collaboration with MaerzMusik | Berliner Festspiele and Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin.
Funded by Initiative Neue Musik Berlin e.V. Supported by i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.