10 Nov 2012

The Living Art Museum: 'sounds for soloists'

sounds for soloists
Performance tour

Performances:
Anders Lauge Meldgaard
Ingi Garðar Erlendsson
a rawlings
Cia Rinne
curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen

THE LIVING ART MUSEUM (NÝLÓ)
11 November 2012
Performances 7-9 pm

sounds for soloists is a performance tour, which is dedicated to a selection of acclaimed artists, who have invented their own language or instrument and perform solo. In collaboration with the The Living Art Museum the performance tour proudly presents performances by Anders Lauge Meldgaard (born in Denmark, living in Berlin), Ingi Garðar Erlendsson (born in Iceland, living in Reykjavík), a rawlings (born in USA, living in Reykjavík) and Cia Rinne (born in Sweden, living in Berlin). The performance tour reaches The Living Art Museum as a vibrant site of performance and contemporary art in Reykjavík after visiting the Grimmuseum in Berlin, summer 2012, and in order to go on to the exhibition space Signal in Malmö.

Unique instruments and languages
The vacuum-cleaner-flute-organ. Berlin-based musician Anders Lauge Meldgaard is part of the successful experimental sound collective in Copenhagen, yoyooyoy, and performs internationally with his solo act Frisk Frugt (Fresh Fruit). Meldgaard will play his mesmerizing and cheerful mix of Danish Folk and Electro lo-fi on his homemade organ build of colorful plastic flutes and a vacuum cleaner.

The Tranophone. Ingi Garðar Erlendsson is composer living in Reykjavík and the cofounder of the dynamic Icelandic sound collective SLATUR, who are behind the festival SLATURTID 2012 and the co-inventor of the Tranophone (Þránófónn) instrument, which is an electrified tuba. He will perform on the Thranophone, which is a feedback instrument based on acoustic resonance in various empty wholes or spaces (cavities) and a tuba.

Sounds with lost sense. a rawlings performs verbally and is a dedicated experimenter with sound, text, and movement, and her work extends the boundaries of what a poem may be through an interrogation of normative linguistic engagement. rawlings will perform excerpts from 'Meaning as Parasitic on Language', a multilingual (English, Icelandic, French) text accented by post-semantic 'sons sans sens.'

Dada poetry in 11 languages? The internationally recognized artist and poet Cia Rinne is behind the tour title, sounds for soloists, which is the title of a sound piece (www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2NaLpiHOzU). Rinne is herself alive performer and of of a multilingual background, and writes highly playful conceptual pieces evocative of Fluxus and Dada poetry. Due to the humoristic and liberating character of Rinnes' poetry, which plays with the global influences on our use of language – is it important what language is spoken? Or if two languages are mixed up? - the topics touched upon in her texts and performances seem to occupy many artists today. Her works, both readings, writings and visuals, are liberated from the constraints of certain artistic genres, they operate freely on the borders of disciplines such as poetry reading, writing, performance and collage-making. Recently she performed next to Patti Smith and Tomomi Adachi.

Performers background:
Ingi Garðar Erlendsson
Ingi Garðar Erlendsson (b. 1980) studied composition with the composers Yannis Kyriakides and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag, from 2007-2009. His works have been and are being performed at on various occasions worldwide. Ingi Garðar is a member of the composers collective S.L.Á.T.U.R (Society of artistically obtrusive composers around Reykjavík) and performs with groups such as Hestbak, Borko, Fengjastrútur, Benni Hemm Hemm, Skeylja, Valdimar, Kippi Kanínus, Stórsveit Nix Noltes and many more. Currently residing in Reykjavík with his girlfriend Vala and their two children, Ísold Anna and Frosti Pétur.

Anders Lauge Meldgaard / Frisk Frugt
Anders Lauge Meldgaard (Aalborg, DK) is the real name of the man behind Frisk Frugt (Danish for Fresh Fruit). As part of the sounds for soloists tour, he plays on his spectacular homemade organ built from toy plastic flutes. Frisk Frugt is part of the Berlin/Copenhagen-based experimental music collective yoyooyoy. He has been involved with yoyooyoy for over a decade and done numerous music and art projects. Meldgaard alias Frisk Frugt also released two albums; Guldtrompeten (2006), and Dansktoppen møder Burkina Faso i det himmelblå rum hvor solen bor, suite (2010). Frisk Frugt operates in his own quirky musical universe, in which genres of traditional Danish folk song writing and poetry in an unpretentious way are spiced up with elements from experimental rock, improvisation, drone, noise, electronica, lo-fi, free jazz and African high-life guitar. When Frisk Frugt performs, he invites everyone into his optimist dinghy for a refreshing neopsychedelic cruise out on music's diverse waves of vast opportunities.
www.yoyooyoy.dk/friskfrugt.htm

a rawlings
a rawlings (*1978) is an interdisciplinary artist whose first book, Wide slumber for lepidopterists (Coach House Books, 2006), received an Alcuin Award for Design. She has developed numerous projects, including Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies (with bluemouth inc.) and Órói (with Maja Jantar). rawlings was awarded the Chalmers Arts Fellowship (2009-10), enabling her to develop and present work in Belgium, Canada, and Iceland. In 2011, she was the artistic director of Reykjavík's international poetry festival. Most recently, rawlings was the 2012 Queensland Poet-in-Residence; she spent three months in Australia developing an online project that combines ecopoetics, acoustic ecology, and counter-mapping. She lives in Reykjavík.
writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Rawlings.php
commutiny.wordpress.com/

Cia Rinne
Cia Rinne (*1973) born in Gothenburg, Sweden, MA in philosophy (Frankfurt, Athens, and Helsinki), lives and works in Berlin. She has performed widely Europe and is an acclaimed reader in Comparative Literature circles Internationally. Recently she took part in exhibitions including the Terra infirma show at the ISCP New York 2010, the Turku Biennial 2011, and Kallio Kunsthalle in Helsinki, 2011. Rinne's publications include zaroum (2001), The Roma Journeys (with Joakim Eskildsen, Steidl 2007), the online-work archives zaroum (2008), notes for soloists (OEI Editör, Stockholm 2009), and the sound work sounds for soloists (2011).
writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Rinne.php
www.afsnitp.dk/galleri/archiveszaroum/

Solvej Helweg Ovesen (curator)
Solvej Helweg Ovesen (*1974) is born in Hillerød, Denmark, educated at De Appel, Curatorial Training Program, Amsterdam, and MA in Cultural Studies (Copenhagen University). She lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen. She recently curated 'Never odd or even – a text spaced exhibition', Grimmuseum, Berlin and Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, 2011-2012, as well as 'The Eye is a Lonely Hunter – Images of Human Kind', 4TH Fotofestival Mannheim Ludwigshafen Heidelberg, 2011. She is the author of the book on performativity in art and life, 'The World as Stage' (nbk), Walther König, 2010. Current projects are 'Sounds for Soloists', Berlin-Reykavik-Malmø, 2012-2013, 'Either-Or', Copenhagen-Berlin, 2013, 'How far away is the horizon?' Holbæk-Copenhagen, 2013.
www.solvejovesen.com

Support:

The performance tour is created with the support of the Nordic Cultural Foundation.

Partners:

Grimmuseum (www.grimmuseum.com), The Living Art Museum (www.nylo.is), Signal (www.signalsignal.org)

Press contact:

Director:
Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir
gunnhildur@nylo.is

Curator:
Solvej Helweg Ovesen
Solvej.ovesen@gmail.com