Ari Benjamin Meyers
Ari Benjamin Meyers was born in 1972 in New York. He lives and works in Berlin.
Ari Benjamin Meyers’ work explores structures and processes that redefine the performative, social, and ephemeral nature of music. His conceptual projects and installations often draw attention to concrete details of music-making otherwise taken for granted and make tangible underlying conceptual operations. Recent works have addressed music scores themselves, forms and arrangements of musical instruments, concert settings, and gestures of performers and conductors. At the same time, his compositions and performances seek to challenge the relationship between performer and audience, giving form to the practice of musicians and composers, and musical structures in the context of visual art.
Trained as a composer and conductor at The Juilliard School, Yale University, and The Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Meyers became widely known in the context of the visual and performative arts in 2007 as musical director and conductor of the group exhibition Il Tempo del Postino (Manchester International Festival, 2007, and Art Basel, 2009). Since then, he has consistently showed predominantly live, music-based works both in museum settings and in public space, reconsidering the legacies of visual and musical institutions and their relationships with their audiences.
Selected projects and solo exhibitions include: Rehearsing Philadelphia, various locations in Philadelphia (2022); The Orchestra of the Future, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn Artist in Residence, Bonn (2021–); K Club, MAAT, Lisbon (2021); The Long Parade, durational performance for Beaufort Triennial, Beaufort 21, Flanders (2021); Solo (Social Distance Version), Yellow Solo project space, Berlin (2020); Launch of Video Art at Midnight Cookbook, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2020); K Club, Blitz Club organized by Lenbachhaus, Munich (2020); Kunsthalle for Music, KW Contemporary, Berlin (2020); Solo for Ayumi, Schering Stiftung, Berlin (2020); Kunsthalle for Music. Moscow Solos, VAC Foundation, Moscow (2019); Kunsthalle for Music, MCASB, Santa Barbara (2019); In Concert, OGR, Turin (2019); Tacet, Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel (2019); Kunsthalle for Music, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2018); Changing of the Guard, Schauspielhaus Bochum (2018); Symphony 80 (with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (2017); An exposition, not an exhibition, Spring Workshop, Hong Kong (2017); Who’s Afraid of Sol La Ti? (Invention I), Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2016); Elevator Music, TRAFO, Szczecin (2016); Memories of the Future, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2016); Symphony X (Installation Version), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2015); Untitled for Choir (Beating Time), Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2015); Just in Time, Just in Sequence, Schauspielhaus Bochum (2014); The Lightning and its Flash (Solo for Conductor), New Initiative for Europe, Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2014); Chamber Music (Vestibule), Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2013-2014).
Selected group exhibitions include: POLYPHON. Mehrstimmigkeit in Bild und Ton, Kunstsammlung Gera, Gera (2021); Out of Order | Positions from the Haubrok Collection Part 1 & 2, Neues Museum | Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2019-20); Luogo e Segni, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019); Beautiful World, Where Are You?, 10th Liverpool Biennial (2018); Floating Worlds, 14th Biennale de Lyon (2017); Works of Music by Visual Artists. Scores, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2016); To the Moon via the Beach, LUMA Foundation, Arles (2012).