Oliver Beer Polyphone

Oliver Beer, Household Gods (Grandmother), 2019, a sixteen vessel installation, will be part of Polyphone, an exhibition at Kunstsammlung Gera and the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Gera, Germany from 2 July - 19 September 2021.

The show brings together a range of artists and musicians, including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Christian Marclay and Candice Breitz who reflect the merging of multiple sounds and voices in convergent or divergent constellations.

“Household Gods (Grandmother), 2019 is an acoustic portrait that orchestrates the daily stuff of life, juxtaposing Beer’s grandmother's humble personal possessions alongside an eccentric ensemble of objects that the artist has collected from across history and antiquity. Beer uses microphones to amplify the ambient sound ricocheting within the internal spaces of the objects, creating gentle acoustic feedback loops, that allow us to hear the innate sound of each object. These notes are determined by volume and form of empty space, and have remained unchanged since the day each piece was created. Encouraging aural interaction with each object’s histories, the installation gives rise to a complex narrative of cultural assimilation, appropriation and access.”