Zimoun: 605 prepared dc-motors, cardboard boxes

On Saturday 22 October at 6pm, as part of the NODE festival, ‘605 prepared dc-motors, cardboard boxes’ will open, marking the first solo show in an Italian museum space by the Swiss artist Zimoun, known for his works that bring together sound art and spatial architecture.

The exhibition, curated by Filippo Aldovini, is organised and produced by the Galleria Civica di Modena and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena in collaboration with the Associazione Lemniscata and fuse.

The exhibition occupies the five rooms of the Palazzina dei Giardini in Modena, each of which will feature a mechanical installation built with simple materials – cardboard boxes, cotton spheres, metal cables, wood, etc. – and equipped with automatic systems that generate sounds and noises. Complex living organisms capable of inhabiting the space in which they are displayed via a subtle yet never banal relationship between sound and the surrounding environment.

Using common industrially produced objects and minimalist constructions, Zimoun explores mechanical rhythms and the tension between the well-ordered models of Modernism and the chaotic force of life. His works bring together the skills of the engineer, the architect, the craftsman, the researcher, the arranger and the orchestral conductor. An autodidact, obsessed by the simplicity of objects and the movements and sounds generated by them, he stoically continues to oppose the dictatorship of new media and technology, reminding us of how the artist may transform the perception of our surroundings.

Through the deliberate use of titles that describe his works simply as a list of the materials and mechanical components adopted, Zimoun’s sound sculptures call on observers to make a further imaginative effort, making him an active participant in the completion of the work itself.

“In my works, you listen to what you see. Hence, the relationship between materials, movement and sound is clear and essential.” – Zimoun.

On the occasion of the opening evening, 22 October at 10pm with a repeat at 11pm, the Main Hall of Palazzo Santa Margherita will host a multi-channel performance by Zimoun, for which the places available were all booked within a few hours.

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue ZIMOUN. 605 prepared dc-motors, cardboard boxes: an object-book edited by Filippo Aldovini, the author of the texts together with the critic and curator Marco Mancuso, director of Digicult. The publication, issued in 400 numbered copies, was designed and compiled by Luca Lattuga with photographs by Paolo Terzi, and is produced by the Galleria Civica di Modena with the support of the Scatolificio Cartotecnica Modenese.