Sound of Art: "Sculptures for Sound"

By: Natasa Tepavcevic

Belgrade, Aug. 13 ,2009, (Serbia Today )- The Exhibition entitled "Sculptures for Sound" was opened on Tuesday, August 11th in the Gallery of Cultural Center Dom Omladine and it will be opened till August 16th, 2009.
Sound of art is a diverse group of art practices that consider wide notions of sound, listening and hearing as its predominant focus. Sculptures for Sound have the visual and aural domains of art. The sounds are programmed and reproduced on electronic devices that the author otherwise uses for composing music. Sound sculpture (related to sound art and sound installation) is an inter-media and time based art form in which sculptures/art objects produce sound, or the reverse (in the sense that sound is manipulated in such a way as to create a sculptural as opposed to temporal form or mass).
We can say that sculptures made by Ivan Bon are hybrid forms, explorations of the human body, sculpture and an ever-expanding set of subjects that are part of the current discourse of contemporary art.
Along the whole space in a gallery, small sound sculptures made of different materials (bronze, polyester, wood, plaster ...) are lying on pedestals, spreading different tones. Each of them contains a small speaker, and all of them are created in order to visually and with its intonation increase the emissive character of the produced sound.
A sharp eye of art lovers or art experts can enjoy twofold of the exhibition setting composition: visual one (arrangement of sculpture in gallery space) and music composition produced by sculptures (sound installation). The difference between a regular art installation and a sound installation is that the later one has the time element, which gives the visiting public the possibility to stay a longer time due to possible curiosity over the development of sound. This temporal factor also gives the audience the excuse to explore the space thoroughly due to the dispositions of the different sounds in space.
Hearing is another form of seeing. What is interesting indeed in this exhibition is the connection between sound and image. The impressions are always a personal thing. In this case it is difficult to find a clue: does an image produce a sound or inversely? A sound which comes from sculptures has a meaning only when its connection with the “image” of particular sculpture is understood. What we can say for sure, the conjunction of sound and image insists on the engagement of the viewer, forcing participation in real space and concrete, responsive thought rather than illusionary space and thought.
Sound of Art-"Sculptures for Sound" by Ivan Bon shows up the bonds between music and visual arts. The titles of sculptures are a proof of that: “tuuu”, “uou”, “sculpture for desultory sour sound”, “breathing”.
Ivan Bon is a young visual artist. He finished the University for Fine Arts in 2002, but he is also a founder and member of music band “Mistakemistake”. He is a conceptual artist who works in broad field of engagements: composition and programming electronic music, animation movies, sculpture.