Rumours
21.04.22–13.05.2022
The exhibition Rumours presented the performance Sad Boxer by Natália Rebelo and a spatial intervention in an abandoned office complex, curated by Sara Rossling. It was part of an aural exhibition project run by Index and was released online during the opening of the Venice Biennale 2022 at Studio Giardini.
This one-person-immersive exhibition experience suggests the listener to wander through the sonic intervals and textures in the familiar yet alien premises. Similar to how rumours circulate and gratify the emotional needs of the community, the dramaturgy of the performance, as meta, reflects on the anticipation of art in our current time. From locations to environments, the exhibition offers a performative experience and includes a new work by Natália Rebelo that has been produced specifically for this project.
listen here
The Aural Exhibitions are a series of sound only exhibitions produced by Index in collaboration with invited artists and curators. The exhibition has traditionally been understood as a physical space, a place where objects are included. Over time, there has been an increase in desire to escape from these spaces and to jump directly to the immaterial; temporality and the subjective experience has defined its own historical timeline within contemporary art.
Shaken by the sudden death of his friend, artist Viktor Hartmann, Modest Mussorgsky threw himself into prolific frenzy, composing his extensive piano suite Pictures of an Exhibition in three weeks during the summer of 1874. The music depicts a tour of Hartmann’s memorial exhibition, linking the suite’s movements in a way that mirrors the viewer’s own progress through the exhibition – shifting in pace and meter, mood and key to suggest contemplation on a work just seen or anticipation of a new work glimpsed. Many of Hartmann’s paintings disappeared after his passing and the music by Mussorgsky is the only trace left of their existence.
Invited curators: Lucy Lippard, Rosana Antoli, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sara Rossling, Mmabatho Thobejane, Alexandra Laudo, Susanne Ewerlöf, Tiago de Abreu Pinto, Samatha Lippett.