Contem­po­rary art has its very own sound. Yet musical instru­ments, which are simul­ta­ne­ously sculp­tures, repre­sent a recent devel­op­ment in contem­po­rary art that is still rela­tively unknown. In a group exhi­bi­tion featuring inter­na­tional artists the SCHIRN presents pieces that also func­tions as musical instru­ments, including works by Doug Aitken, Nevin Aladag, Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Carlos Amorales, Tarek Atoui, Guillermo Gallindo, Carsten Nicolai, Pedro Reyes, Naama Tsabar and David Zink Yi.

The focus of the exhi­bi­tion, which is itself in a state of constant flux, is the playing of these sculp­tural instru­ments. For the dura­tion of the show, the SCHIRN will temporarily morph into a concert hall as the works are acti­vated and sounds arise. Visi­tors will thus expe­ri­ence the sound of artworks live. Mobile display archi­tec­ture will create space for work­shops in which the sound of the instru­ments will be explored by musi­cians in changing ensem­bles and subse­quently presented in concerts.

The artists will demon­strate their own works in perfor­mances. The starting point for the concept is the exten­sion of the defi­n­i­tion of art and music by the Fluxus move­ment of the 1960s: happen­ings or actions were under­stood as “concerts,” because they were struc­tured in a similar fashion to compo­si­tions and combined different media and mate­rials with one another.