Sounds: Radio – Kunst – Neue Musik:: February 13 – March 28, 2010 :: Opening:February 12; 7:00 p.m :: Exhibition Space (ground floor) @ nk.

image: Samuel Beckett during the production of He Joe, 1966 / Photo: Wilhelm Papst

During the age of the historical avant-gardes, the arts formed a mutually enriching synthesis before the separation and specialization into individual disciplines set in during the 1930s. Radio was a place in which this interplay of the arts was attempted over and over, also against the dominance of the dialog-centered radio play. The exhibition project Sounds- Radio – Art – Neue Musik makes radio accessible as an artistic medium, and makes it possible to experience it in a spatial context. Based on the polyvocality of radio art and a fascination with the disembodied character that shaped the early years of radio, the exhibition opens surprising perspectives on radio art and its potential to create complex experiential spaces.

Five radio works that emerged in the framework of the German/Czech radio art project rádio d-cz formed the starting point of the exhibition. Writers, artists, dramaturges, sound collectors, and musicians went on a journey of discovery in German-Czech lifeworlds for rádio d-cz. Using actual and fictional history, the radio features, radio plays, and sound collages tell of adventures and self-made men, fences that separate and sounds that connect. The five pieces encounter in the exhibition historical and contemporary references that make it possible for us to understand their respective stylistic resonance. Furthermore, for the duration of the exhibition Ursula Block will open her archive on the history of new music and acoustic art and move her Berlin music store “gelbe MUSIK” temporarily inside the exhibition space of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein.

An additional 25 referential pieces from 80 years of radio history stand for the five elementary force fields of radio that fascinated writers and artists since the beginning of the medium: the flexible mobility with which radio abolishes geographic distance, its puzzling play with the limits of public and private space, its art of creating fictional spaces with original sounds, its ability to sensitize us to the complex sound textures of an everyday sound environment, and the inherent paradox of a disembodied medium that emphasizes the physical quality of the voice. The exhibition will explore these five force fields using radio plays, features, and sound compositions that circle around the main pieces.

The archive part of the exhibition presents 100 additional radio art productions from the participating broadcasters.

Productions by:
Juan Allende-Blin, Susanne Amatosero, Andreas Ammer, Alfred Andersch, Beate Andres, Antonin Artaud, Ingeborg Bachmann, Walter Bauer, Samuel Beckett, Walter Benjamin, Barry Bermange, Andreas Bick, Friedrich Walter Bischoff, Ursula Block/gelbe MUSIK, Hermann Bohlen, Alessandro Bosetti, Alfred Braun, Peter Leonhard Braun, Bertolt Brecht, Klaus Buhlert, Frieder Butzmann, John Cage, Christian Calon, Velimir Chlebnikov, Carlfriedrich Claus, Console, Alvin Curran, Peter Cusack, Tacita Dean, Eduard Roderich Dietze, Esther Dischereit, Peter Dittmer, Alfred Döblin, Oswald Egger, Günter Eich, Barbara Eisenmann, William Faulkner, Raymond Federman, Luc Ferrari, Walter Filz, Hans Flesch, FM Einheit, Werner Fritsch, Tetsuo Furudate, Martin Gantenbein, Hartmut Geerken, Ulrich Gerhardt, Thomas Gerwin, Stefano Giannotti, Michael Glasmeier, Heiner Goebbels, Patricia Görg, Guido Graf, Kai Grehn, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Frank Halbig, Ludwig Harig, Hanna Hartman, Helene Hegemann, Elke Heinemann, Helmut Heißenbüttel, Niklaus Helbling, Paul Hindemith, Hofmann&Lindholm, Richard Hughes, Steffen Irlinger, Ernst Jandl, Elfriede Jelinek, Bernadette Johnson, Arsenije Jovanovic, Mauricio Kagel, Schorsch Kamerun, Dora Kaprálová, Hermann Kasack, Walter Kempowski, Oskar Kokoschka, Thomas Köner, Stephan Krass, Ferdinand Kriwet, Jean-Claude Kuner, Paul Laven, Michael Lentz, LIGNA, Bruno Maderna , Friederike Mayröcker, Sergej Medwedew, Jonathan Meese, Thomas Meinecke, Michaela Melián, Franz Mon, Herbert Morrison, Move D, Heiner Müller, Wolfgang Müller, Albert Ostermaier, Georges Perec, Helmut Peschina, Eberhard Petschinka, Paul Plamper, René Pollesch, Werner Pöschko, Rimini Protokoll, Eduard Roderich, Jon Rose, Dieter Roth, Joseph Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Walter Ruttmann, Rafael Sanchez, Eran Schaerf, Christoph Schlingensief, Ernst Schnabel, Ernst Schoen, Nadja Schöning, Kateřina Šedá, Theodor Siebs, Rolf Simmen, Walter Spies, Tim Staffel, Andrzej Stasiuk, Ronald Steckel, Ulrike Syha, George Tabori, Andrej Tarkowskij, Asmus Tietchens, Jáchym Topol, Naoya Uchimura, Anja Utler, Mario Verandi, Michel Vinaver, Miloš Vojtĕchovský, Wolf Vostell, Antje Vowinckel, Friedrich Walter, Stefan Weigl, Marianne Weil, Kurt Weill. Friedrich Wolf, Ror Wolf, Paul Wühr

Curatorial Team: Marius Babias, Gaby Hartel, Frank Kaspar, Katrin Klingan
Exhibition Design: Ruudi Beier, Peter Wellch (id3d-berlin themengestaltung)
Assistant: Silvia Ploner

An exhibition project in cooperation with Zipp – German-Czech Cultural Projects, an initiative of Federal Cultural Foundation.