Since Erik Satie's furniture music at the end of the 19th century, music as a state or music as a spatial experience has stood as a counterpoint to earlier formal ideals where longer sequences were justified through development and variation of musical themes and their interplay.
Satie wanted to facilitate a spatial atmosphere through background music and is therefore often called the 'father of muzak'. His desk composition 'Vexations' (1893) has become an iconic piece that would prove to have enormous significance for the development of sound art. In this seemingly insignificant and short piece, he writes an instruction that is still subject to debate. It concerns the repetition of the piece. 840 times, to be exact. Why this particular number is unknown, but many have taken this literally and arranged marathon concerts with several pianists playing the piece over and over again in turns.
Sonic minimalism, in its most radical form, is by definition unfinished. Nevertheless, the commercial value of minimalism has proved to be very high. Both within music, visual arts and design, minimalism has gained commercial success and reached a wide audience. The effect of this is twofold. On the one hand, it was an artistic victory over more ostentatious and emotionally oriented art, and an effective stop to politicised use of artistic expressions. On the other hand, it has been a shortcut to money for many artists, which has given minimalism an air of dishonesty and greed, art more for the pleasure of the eye/ear than for the mind.
This duality is the starting point for the exhibition Minimal, featuring Peter Vogel, Tristan Perich and Joyce Hinterding. The exhibition focuses on three artistic practices that all resonate towards an infinite, repetitive sound field, while simultaneously presenting themselves to the audience with a simple and striking surface. Their visual profile is so refined that one almost becomes suspicious.
Sound art traditionally tends to be unfinished, almost incomplete or random in its visual expression. Sound-based contemporary art typically does not lend itself well to being hung on the wall above the sofa or in the foyer. In Minimal, we somewhat challenge this notion and showcase three artists who, through their visual profile and minimal sound expression, can be included in a traditional art collection. These are objects that can be hung on a wall or placed on a plinth.