Oliver Beer and his “Cat Orchestra” create Cosmic Paintings

In 1650, the occult philosopher Athanasius Kircher invented an equally provocative tool: cat piano (or cat organ), in which live cats, arranged according to the pitch of their voices, screamed when the keys of the instrument were struck with their tails. This cruel instrument was first described by Kircher in his book Universal music and later appeared in the 1883 French textbook naturewhere seven cats in cages serve as the pipes of a piano.

image of cat piano in the year nature, displayed near the entrance to Almine Rech in Tribeca, is the entry point to British artist Oliver Beer’s “Resonance Paintings — Cat Orchestra” exhibit. For the show, Beer (the human) realized Kircher’s musical vision with the installation 2024 Cat Orchestra Here, 37 empty cat-shaped bowls are transformed into a unique harmonious instrument. Each vessel, precisely placed on a plinth and arranged like a symphony orchestra, is connected to a keyboard via a highly sensitive microphone. This works like a switchboard, activating the microphones to pick up the nuances of sound echoing inside the containers.

“The microphone turns on, and it feeds on the exact note of that object,” Beer told Artsi of his playback. Cat Orchestra To achieve this harmony, Beer acquired a specific collection of cat bowls, each with a different timbre, bringing friends, family and colleagues together in a global hunt. An absinthe pot, carved to represent a cat playing a mandolin, echoes the fa sozusa, while the Japanese. mannequin the figure at the front of the orchestra emits a happy D note. “It’s very natural for them to sing too,” he added.

Cat Orchestra, pre-programmed to play various tunes, drenches the gallery space with ambient music, creating an immersive soundscape for visitors. Beyond preset tunes, Beer’s exhibition also extends an open invitation to visitors. Until the exhibition closes on April 27, guests can engage with the artwork by sitting at the keyboard to play music with cat bowls.

Beer developed his love for sound and music at an early age. “I was always making drawings and visual art, but I also had this incredible sensitivity to harmony: I could hear what key the London Underground tunnels were in, or I could hear a key to change the glass while I poured myself a glass of wine. bottle,” Beer said. Before studying visual art at the University of Oxford, he focused on music composition at the Academy of Contemporary Music in London. Then, in 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned the then 30-year-old artist to create an instrument from the museum’s collection—merging these two mediums. Here, he organized his first Ship Orchestra (2019), finding 32 bowls to play in harmony.

“When you hear these things reverberating, what’s happening is that there’s a note that physically goes inside that vessel,” Beer said. “You throw a stone into a pond, and you see perfect concentric circles. The sound is really similar; If you were to watch the air around the ship as it reverberated, you would see amazing geometry reverberate and emerge. It’s just that we hear that geometry instead of seeing it.”

Later, in 2020, Beer began to try to visualize these sounds, starting his “Resonance Paintings” series. For these, he laid the canvas horizontally and placed a speaker underneath, where he plays notes from his cat bowls. The sound of these bowls vibrates the canvas, manipulating the ultra-fine pigment that gently deposits on it. Inspired by scientists such as the 19th century physicist Robert Hooke, Beer has learned to play with the cat’s bowls to achieve the desired visual result.

“Over the years, I’ve refined this process,” Beer said. “It’s not a scientific experiment where you show the movement of sound…but really using sound as a paintbrush to paint what I want to paint, not just what sound can randomly create.”

His latest “Resonance Paintings” evoke the cosmos, showing blue and white waves without the spectacular gesturing movement. This is because these boxes move and fix at the same time when Beer manipulates the volume of the speaker under the canvas. When putting ultrafine pigments on the canvas, Beer never guides them directly with his hand. Instead, it uses the speaker and its containers to control vibrations and change the paint on the canvas before the canvas is stained. For Beer, it’s “controlled geometry.” Although he initially worked with charcoal, Beer found inspiration in the blue-white porcelain ceramics he saw in Seoul, degrading and helping to convey new hues.