BMW presents the sound programme Frieze Sounds at the art fairs in London. BMW as partner of Frieze Art Fair and Frieze Masters from 17 – 20 October 2013

London/ Munich. The 11th edition of Frieze Art Fair, the leading international contemporary art fair, takes place in London’s Regent’s Park from 17 – 20 October 2013. At the same time the second edition of Frieze Masters showcases ancient and modern art side by side to contemporary art. 152 galleries from a total of 30 countries will be presenting their current art works at this year’s Frieze Art Fair, while additional 130 galleries will give a unique perspective on art throughout the ages at Frieze Masters. Since 2004, BMW has been partnering with Frieze Art Fair. Last year BMW expanded its long-term partnership by additionally supporting Frieze Masters and Frieze New York.

This year Frieze Sounds, a program of sound works initiated by BMW, makes its London debut at the Frieze art fairs in London. The three especially for Frieze Sounds commissioned audio works will be showcased in the BMW 7 Series VIP shuttle service and are also accessible via a listening station inside the fair and streamed online (http://friezeprojectsny.org/sounds//). Launched at Frieze New York in 2011, the three audio works by Trisha Baga, Charles Atlas and New Humans, and Haroon Mirza will now be featured for the first time in London. Frieze Sounds is programmed and curated by Cecilia Alemani.

BMW maintains long-term and sustainable partnerships with the most important and prestigious art fairs around the world. Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, Frieze Art Fair and Frieze Masters in London, Frieze New York, Paris Photo in Paris and Los Angeles, the abc – art berlin contemporary, and the Gallery Weekend Berlin are only a few examples. Together with the partners, new formats are developed that place art fairs and their visitors to an even greater extent in the focus of an exchange of ideas and thoughts. 

Information on the artists

Trisha Baga (b. 1985, Venice, Florida, USA)
Trisha Baga is known for intricate installations that combine psychedelic projections, sculptural assemblages, and arrangements of found youtube videos combined with audio recordings. For Frieze Sounds, she will present Hercules Radio, a sound work that remixes sounds from disparate sources including Hollywood movie scores, everyday noises, ominous weather channel forecasts and voiceovers in several different languages. In this work, the artist highlights the tonal quality of language, rather than its content, composing the soundtrack for an imaginary journey that takes the listener through an array of fluid identities and incongruous locations.

Charles Atlas (b. 1958 St. Louis, Missouri, USA) and New Humans (Mika Tajima b. 1975, Los Angeles, California, USA/Howie Chen b. 1976, Cincinnati, Ohio)
Charles Atlas and New Humans have previously collaborated on a number of projects at the intersection of sound, installation and performance, including film productions as performance, sculptural installations, music events and live video presentations. For Frieze Sounds (How to Escape the Island), Atlas and New Humans extend their collaboration into a new aural experience, utilizing electronically fractured vocals by Atlas and Tajima. A poem-like babble of unrelated words, the work articulates the flow of global materials, information and people extracted from distant places made readily accessible and mundane – the soundtrack and backdrop for urban island life.

Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London, UK)
Haroon Mirza has been investigating the generative power of sound and noise in a series of architectural installations and kinetic sculptures that play with our perceptions of space. For Frieze Sounds, Mirza’s work Recording for a car will be played in the VIP Cars: A recording made from a car engine over a one-minute period disorientates the listener in the car. Furthermore, Moving Towards a Waterfall, a digital homage to the experimental composer John Cage, will be presented on the listening station inside the fair – 4 minutes and 33 seconds of computer-generated brown noise that slowly increases in volume.

BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For over 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in more than 100 cultural partner-ships worldwide. The focus of this long-term commitment to culture is modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. BMW has worked with artists such as Ger-hard Richter, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Baren-boim and Anna Netrebko and commissioned architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au. In London, BMW in partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra, hosts the BMW LSO Open Air Classics, a yearly live concert free of charge in Trafalgar Square, and supports Frieze Art Fair. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview

The BMW Group

The BMW Group is the leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 28 pro-duction and assembly facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 coun-tries.

In 2012, the BMW Group sold about 1.85 million cars and more than 117,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2012 was euro 7.82 billion on revenues amounting to euro 76.85 billion. At 31 December 2012, the BMW Group had a workforce of 105,876 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy.

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