Alexander Tillegreen in the Kunsthalle Mannheim: Hear Art and See it Anew
Date and Time
Location
About this Event
Mood
Venue Type
When Art Begins to Sound: Alexander Tillegreen's Pieces for Works
In the Kunsthalle Mannheim, visual art, architecture, and sound come together in an exhibition that makes the museum space experienceable as a sensitive instrument. The Danish artist and composer Alexander Brix Tillegreen develops ten site-specific sound installations in dialogue with selected works from the collection. This creates an art experience that inextricably links seeing and hearing.
Sound as a New Form of Artwork Examination
Tillegreen selected artworks by Auguste Rodin, Rosemarie Trockel, László Moholy-Nagy, Anna Mahler, Francis Bacon, Edvard Munch, Isa Genzken, Édouard Vuillard, and Louise Nevelson as compositional starting points. Sculptures, paintings, and works on paper gain an additional perception level: Their textures, rhythms, spatial tensions, and material qualities are translated into auditory structures.
The exhibition does not understand sound as merely accompanying the artworks. Each composition interacts as an independent installation with its visual counterpart. This shifts attention, sense of time, and meaning during the tour. A painting no longer appears solely as a picture surface, and a sculpture no longer merely exists as a body in space, but as a starting point for a multifaceted aesthetic experience.
Between Psychoacoustics and Contemporary Composition
Alexander Tillegreen's artistic practice moves between painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, sound installation, and composition. He studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, and also art history, musicology, and sound studies at the University of Copenhagen. His works investigate how language, voice, memory, and psychoacoustic phenomena shape our perception.
In Pieces for Works, elements of contemporary classical music, field recordings, and experimental instrumentation are combined. Some sound works use language and musical references, while others develop immersive sound zones that subtly move through the museum spaces. The atmosphere of the exhibition arises from varying intensities: Sounds approach the threshold of audibility, condense into spatial interventions, or open a quiet resonance space for personal attention.
A Tour Through Sound Zones
The installations are distributed across various rooms of the Kunsthalle. Visitors encounter them not in a linear sequence but as acoustic traces within the collection. This curation demands a slowed-down viewing of the works: The gaze wanders, the ear orients, and the body becomes the measure of the museum space.
This approach is particularly striking in the sonic engagement with Isa Genzken's sculpture Yamasaki. A vibraphone solo dynamically moves around the reduced form, making the sculpture appear like an architectural model. In other works, compositions respond to the expressive tension of Francis Bacon, the plastic presence of Rodin, or the open image structure of László Moholy-Nagy.
Cultural Education Through Active Listening
Pieces for Works provides a low-threshold access to contemporary art, as it does not assume perception but initiates it. The exhibition invites visitors to observe differences between hearing, seeing, and remembering, and to understand their own reaction as part of the artwork. Thus, Tillegreen's project addresses questions of aesthetic research and cultural education.
The exhibition is also situated in the cultural context of Mannheim as a UNESCO City of Music. It expands the traditional museum visit with a physical-spatial dimension and makes audible how closely art, architecture, and musical thinking are interconnected.
Conclusion: A Museum as a Resonance Space
Alexander Tillegreen's Pieces for Works transform the Kunsthalle Mannheim into a resonance space where images, sculptures, spaces, and sounds enter into new relationships. Art enthusiasts can expect focused engagement with the works, an unusual exhibition atmosphere, and an art experience between contemporary composition and collection art. Those wishing to deepen their aesthetic experience of the museum with all their senses should definitely visit this exhibition live.
Official Channels of Alexander Tillegreen:
- Instagram: no official profile found
- Facebook: no official profile found
- YouTube: no official profile found
- Website: https://www.alexandertillegreen.com/
