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Utopia: Since Thomas Mores seminal treatise in 1516, countless writers have tried to define the term. Utopia? A perfect world of the imagination. With this notion, to what degree can all art - and especially conceptual art - be considered utopian?
In his first exhibition in the Emerson Gallery Berlin, the young Polish artist Mikolaj Polinski explores these utopian aspects of the aesthetic. Together with the Japanese pianist Misa Shimomura , Polinski subdues the entire gallery space to create a labyrinthine art construction of wood and metal that also serves as a gargantuan, phantasmagorical musical instrument. The result, Noises of Utopia, conflates the domains of music, space and the visual arts where noise turns to a sense of harmony between the visual and the audio. Gallery visitors are invited to invent compositions of their own, playing with the artifice and dissonance of the entire art environment.
Noises of Utopia confronts a surprisingly recurring theme at the Emerson Gallery Berlin, the realm of synaestesia, crossing epistemological boundaries to hear colors, or smell sounds, for instance. The concept will be returned to this year with paintings by Thomas Gentner, inspired by and giving visual form to jazz music. Polinski and Shimomuras approach to such boundary-crossing, however, takes on a unique aspect missing in many of the more theoretical forays into synaestesia. The idea of noise not sound or melody is crucial to their art experience. Noise makes room for a Dionysian moment in the often Apollonian experiments in sound art or music. The Utopia achieved transcends a mere search for harmony of the senses. It allows for and even embraces the disharmony of the world we live in.
At the opening on January 27, both Polinski and Shimomura will be on hand to perform using their imaginative construction.
Press Release
Artists: Mikolaj Polinski , Misa Shimomura
