Oliver Beer: The Sky in the Cave Exhibition Review

For Oliver Beer, born in 1985 and based in London and Paris, silence isn’t silent. “The ambient sound of silence has a particular colour, a particular harmony, determined by the geometry and volume of the space that contains it,” the artist told Ocula last year. Beer’s work eschews genre as well as the perceived confines of our senses. In his “Resonance Paintings,” audio he’s recorded within particular spaces dictate the visual compositions themselves. Beer positions speakers beneath the canvas, and the sonic vibrations that emanate move powdered pigments accordingly, resulting in exquisite painted translations of sound. When Beer recorded in a prehistoric cave in the Dordogne, the connections between the cave’s ancient acoustical qualities and the Paleolithic paintings proved revelatory. For two months, Thaddeus Ropac London is exhibiting “The Sky in the Cave,” a new collection of Beer’s large-scale paintings, music, film, and an installation based on the Dordogne experience. A limited-edition vinyl soundtrack will be available, and on opening day Beer and Rufus Wainwright, the musician with whom Beer collaborated in Dordogne, will appear together in conversation. —Spike Carter