Artist Alexandra Pirici merges art and science with expansive show in Berlin
ARTIST Alexandra Pirici is presenting “Attune”, a major site-specific installation with live performative action, in Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.

It is the first in a new series of annual commissions to be launched at the start of Gallery Weekend Berlin.

The 2024 edition is co-commissioned by Hamburger Bahnhof and Audemars Piguet Contemporary.

With “Attune”, Pirici explores the ways in which humans and non-humans resemble, influence and attune to one another.

Having extensively studied self-organising patterns and processes across all forms of matter, Pirici imbues her work with the knowledge she has acquired from careful observation of the world around her as well as from her reading, experimentation, discourse and collaboration with scientists across various disciplines.

Parts of “Attune”, the installation work being exhibited at Hamburger Bahnhof.

The Romanian, who is also a choreographer, creates a vibrant imaginary landscape within Hamburger Bahnhof, a contemporary art museum in Berlin, Germany, housed in a former railway station that is over 150 years old.

Pirici interweaves active sculptural elements with live performative action and polyphonic musical pieces of her own choreography and composition.

In this simultaneously archaic and futuristic environment created by the artist and designed together with long-term collaborator Andrei Dinu, chemical reactions, mineral formations, and physical phenomena perform alongside living bodies in acknowledgement and celebration of the continuum between animate and inanimate matter.

A former railway station that is more than 150 years old.

Together, these actors show how stable structures emerge from the random behaviour of atoms, molecules and cells – in both animate and inanimate matter.

A stainless steel vine-like sculpture, a shape-shifting sand dune, a spiraling platform, plants, mineral formations and chemical gardens, among other elements, bring audiences face to face with the wonder of self-organising processes and patterns.

One of the highlights in the installation is the Briggs-Rauscher Reaction, in which a solution shifts back and forth between two colours before the reaction finally comes to an end. The oscillating chemical reaction is often used to demonstrate self-organising patterns in chemistry.

The various elements -- the inanimate displays and the 13 human performers -- all together not only define the experiential world but also offer an insight into the emergence of life and evolution.

Pirici says “Attune” comes from her ongoing interest in exploring our relationship to other life forms and the possibility to move closer to other forms of embodiment.

Pirici who is collaborating with Audemars Piguet Contemporary for the second time.

“Bodies and material configurations do not have to be human or even alive to display intelligent behaviour, which grounds the idea that no matter how different, we are somehow fundamentally connected to one another.

“I am hoping to celebrate this continuum through this imaginary landscape that lives for a few months in the exhibition space,” she adds.

This is Pirici’s second collaboration with Audemars Piguet Contemporary, following the programme’s support of her “Encyclopedia of Relations” (2022) at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale.

The life action portion of “Attune”, a work co-commissioned by Audemars Piguet.

Audemars Piguet Contempo-rary curator Denis Pernet says Pirici’s reflection on how we resemble, influence and attune to one another echoes Audemars Piguet’s belief that creativity connects people and illustrates the transformative journey that we have all embarked on.

The new co-commission enables the artist to develop her practice on a larger scale, incorporating fixed physical structures alongside live action that takes place for four hours each day from 1pm (time in Germany), except Thursdays when the live action is scheduled to start at 3pm.

The performative portion of “Attune”, a project by Romanian artist Alexandra Pirici at Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany.

The ongoing exhibition, which began on April 25, will end on Oct 6.

It is co-funded by German Federal Cultural Foundation and Federal Government Commis-sioner for Culture and the Media.
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ARTIST Alexandra Pirici is presenting “Attune”, a major site-specific installation with live performative action, in Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.