Working at the intersection of sound installation, music, and painting, Rubén D’Hers explores the concept of listening as a blurred domain where sounds acoustically generated overlap with our musical and auditory memory.
The exhibition features a sound installation using several acoustic guitars that are gently strummed by a set of motors hanging above the guitars. This system articulates the tuning of each instrument, creating a cluster of chords that evoke music which neither begins nor ends precisely but paradoxically flows in a static state.
The assemblages and devices depicted in the paintings draw on residual tones that resonate permanently within the domestic environment while going unnoticed. The evoked sound from the paintings not only distorts the music generated by the guitars but also our notion of silence.
Rubén D’Hers is a current fellow at Villa Romana in the city of Florence and is a recipient of the Senat Berlin Cultural exchange stipend Berlin - Tokyo 2021, Stiftung Kunstfonds working stipend 2020, the emerging artist award grant Cisneros Fontanals Foundation CIFO 2018 among other.
His work has been exhibited and performed at venues like Tokyo Arts & Space (JP), Funkhaus Berlin (DE), The Empty Gallery (HK), Centro Cultural Metropolitano Quito (EC), Artica Svalbard (NO), ZKM Karlsruhe (DE), Neues Museum Weimar (DE), Klangraum Krems (AT), Interstice Festival (FR), TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (ES), Netwerk Center for Contemporary Arts (BE), Heart of Noise Festival (AT), SeaM Weimar (DE), Donau Festival (AT), Le Bon Accueill (FR), Autres Mesures Festival (FR), Kontejner Bu- reau for Contemporary Art (HR), Oficina #1 (VE).
He holds an MFA in Sound Studies at the Berlin University of Arts and a BFA in Media Art & Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar.