KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art
Am Sudhaus 3
12053 Berlin

https://www.kindl-berlin.com/exhibitions/iliggocene/#diskurs-iliggocene

Taking the phenomenon of weather as a starting point, the work e by Ari Benjamin Meyers investigates predictability (or lack thereof) and the insatiable human need for prognoses, progress and domination over our planet. Reflecting on the climate crisis, as well as on the increasingly dramatic and irrational relationship between humans and nature, between humans and their future on the planet, the performance weaves together a myriad of historical facts and lays bare their often hidden connections, centring around the true story of David Buckel, an American lawyer who committed suicide by fire in New York in 2018 as a protest against the fossil fuel industry. Forecast (LX23) is scored for two electric guitars, electric bass and performer. While lasting only one hour, the concentrated performance makes great physical and mental demands of the performers as they attempt in real time to navigate Meyers’s intricate and dense construction of music and text.

Meyers’s works explore structures and processes that redefine the performative, social and ephemeral nature of music and music making. His compositions, installations, exhibitions and performances seek to challenge the relationship between performer and audience, between performance and reality, blending and blurring the contexts and structures of music with those of the visual arts. More recently his work has focused on the public and civic spheres and has involved large scale communal rituals, even the founding of entirely new orchestras in cities as diverse as Bitterfeld, Germany (as part of Festival Osten) and Philadelphia, USA (as part of his large-scale performative public art project Rehearsing Philadelphia).

Ari Benjamin Meyers (b. 1972, USA) received his training as a composer and conductor at The Juilliard School, at Yale University, and at the Peabody Institute. His work has been presented at various venues and festivals internationally including Unlimited Night at Art Basel (2022); Hamburger Kunsthalle (2022); Museum Abteilberg, Mönchengladbach (2022); Musée d’art et d’histoire Paul Éluard, Saint-Denis (2022); Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2022); Theater Treffen, Berlin (2022); MAAT, Lisbon (2021); Beaufort Triennial (2021); Urbane Künste Ruhr (2021); Neues Museum Nürnberg (2020); Schering Stiftung, Berlin (2020); MCA Santa Barbara (2019); Kunstverein Kassel (2019); OGR Turin (2019); VAC Foundation, Moscow (2019); Frac Franche-Comté (2019); Pinault Collection, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019); Liverpool Biennial (2018).