History: a microcosmic perspective

Oliver Beer is part of History: a microcosmic perspective, at 20/21 espacio de arte, Tijarafe, La Palma, Spain 

There is no need to speak. You must only concentrate and recall all your past life. When a man thinks of the past, he becomes kinder - "Stalker", 1979 / screenplay: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, dir: Andrei Tarkovsky

World history is written in broad and sweeping perspectives. The places and names, often associated with power and conflicts that span over eras, can abstract the past obscuring its personal relevance to the present. Art can fill this void when it takes on the role of humanizing these events. Definitely in literature we see it in the form of storytelling, and in the visual arts it is also found when artistic output directly correlates with personal experiences of their times. 

The history of an individual is as much about cultural legacy as it is recent family heritage, and viewing Art from this perspective shines a light on our differences on both the global and the personal scale. That we are all in fact unique is what we actually all have in common, and understanding this enables us to see ourselves in the ‘other’ and develop the empathy that is necessary to build a humane and peaceful world. 

V and VI: Family Matters

Property and photographs left behind by family often have little or no value to anyone else besides the children and grandchildren who inherit them, their worth emotional or sentimental rather than monetary. There is a special alchemy that happens when artists elevate these belongings or intimate memories by including them as media and subject in their works, where in doing so, they inject a personal narrative - their own heritage - into a conceptual and formal creative practice.

Oliver Beer (Kent, UK, 1985 - London, UK, currently)

"Household Gods" reflects Oliver Beer's exploration of the relationship between sound and form, and the innate musicality of the physical world. The "Household Gods (Father) of the title are physical objects (once belonging to or have a connection to his father), placed on plinths in a whitened room and idolized to the point where they can sing. They are given voice and raised to the status of household divinities. 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 obiect. These notes are determined by volume and form of empty space, and have remained unchanged since the day each piece was created. (Oliver Beer,"Household Gods", Ropac Paris, 2019 - excerpt)