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Visual artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and composer Ari Benjamin
Meyers’ scenic walk through Stockholm and its surroundings traces a
classic story in a current reality. The one-time only performance
T.451 is inspired by Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi novel Fahrenheit
451 (1953), as well as the film version by François Truffaut
(1966) with music by Bernard Herrmann. In Bradbury’s original story,
set in a future society, the only communication is made through TV and
images. Literature is regarded as dangerous for the unified community and
has thus been classified as illegal. The printed word is actively searched
for and destroyed by firemen who, instead of putting out fires, burn books
to prevent disillusioned human conditions.
In T.451 the
public becomes witness to re-enactments played out in Stockholm city and
the suburb of Tensta. By inserting scenarios where music plays a large role
into architectural environments, infrastructure, and public places such as
Gunnar Asplund’s famous Stockholm Library; the Stockholm subway; and
the late modernist housing area Tensta, Gonzalez-Foerster and Meyers are
testing the possibility of an imagined future through a new form of musical
and performed narrative.
Gonzalez-Foerster and Meyers first
started working together in 2007 as part of Il Tempo del
Postino, the group show/artist opera curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and
Philippe Parreno, which premiered as part of the inaugural Manchester
International Festival. Their first full production as collaborators
followed in 2008 with the work NY.2022 for the Peter B.
Lewis Theater at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York. In 2009 they
premiered the Performa 09 commission K.62/K.85 at the
Abrons Arts Center in New York. In 2011 this production subsequently
traveled to Kaaitheater, Brussels (K.62/K.73/K.85) and then to
Hebbel Theater Berlin (K.62/K.85/M.31). In addition
to T.451, they are working on a number of new projects, as
well as a web-based archive. Their work together often takes its
inspiration from specific films or pieces of music and has been
self-described as "audience-based."
T.451 is a
collaboration between Stockholm konst and Tensta konsthall, with support by
Stockholm Library, Tensta Library, and Einar Mattsson AB. A special thanks
to The Greater Stockholm Fire Brigade, the organization Röde Hanen The
Stockholm City Museum, and Kurdiska föreningen Spånga. Produced
by Stockholm konst.
Free tickets and information
Stockholm konst
Djurgårdsvägen 60
115 21
Stockholm
Sweden
T +46 8 508 31 336
annika.hansson.wretman@stockholm.se
www.stockholmkonst.se
Tensta konsthall
Taxingegränd 10
163 04 Spånga
Sweden
T +46 8 36 07 63
ulrika@tenstakonsthall.se
www.tenstakonsthall.se
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