As part of the series Thinking Nature, GiG Munich is hosting the online discussion between the artist, Kalas Liebfried and Dr Sebastian Truskolaski, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in German Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester. The discussion takes place on Zoom on Wednesday evening at 7 pm, the 12th of January.
Please note that while the discussion is free to attend, make sure to keep your microphone on mute and your video off. The discussion will also be recorded for later viewing.
GiG Munich is happy to present its final exhibition of 2021, ‘Reading the Air’ with new work by Kalas Liebfried. The exhibition is part of the ‘Thinking Nature’ series hosted by GiG Munich and funded by the Department of Art and Culture, Munich.
In 1987 Sony released the iconic and groundbreaking commercial for its Walkman, featuring the Japanese macaque Choromatsu. We first see Choromatsu in profile, eyes closed, listening to music on a Walkman while standing in the mountains at the edge of a still lake: Choromatsu contemplates. Written underneath we can read, “The progress in sound continues, but what about mankind?”. This becomes the central question of Liebfried’s exhibition, a study on the technological progress in music and otherwise, the historical relation between Japanese and Western aesthetics with reference to impressionist concepts of nature and work by Franz Marc, as well as the impact of technology on the human condition and how this changes the capability to experience natural habitats. The “air” of the exhibition and its ambient methodology, is “In the Air Tonight”, the song by Phil Collins, which here the fragmented figure of a hyper-realist Choromatsu is destined to listen to forever, looping over and over again.
Kalas Liebfried (*1989 in Svishtov, Bulgaria) studied sculpture and time-based media at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and Philosophy at the LMU Munich. Central to his installations and performances is the exploration of the sculptural and socio-political potentials of sound. Liebfried is co-running the independent art space “Rosa Stern” and is founder of “PARA” (non-label sound art organization). His works have been shown in solo presentations at i.a. the galleries of the Goethe-Institut Paris and Sofia (2021) and Nir Altman Gallery (2019); group exhibitions and performances at i.a. Lenbachhaus Munich, Sofia City Art Gallery, Onassis Foundation Athens, Pinakothek der Moderne and Kunstverein Munich. Recent awards i.a. project stipend Stiftung Kunstfonds (2020) und Kulturpreis Bayern (2019). In 2021 Kalas Liebfried published his first monograph “Obscure Ambience” (Edition Metzel).
GiG 