Michele Spanghero: “Ad Lib”

The work of Italian artist Michele Spanghero (1979) swings between the sound approach and the visual arts through a process of conceptual and transversal research, where the creative impulse starts from the enormous quantity of data that surround us. His pieces have been exhibited and performed in different international contexts such as museums, galleries, clubs and festivals, and his practice focuses on the marginal elements of architecture, investigating the relationship between space and perception through various means, such as with the piece that we present at Eufònic: the sound sculpture “Ad lib” combines a medical machine for automatic pulmonary ventilation with a few organ pipes that play a musical chord to the constant rhythm of the mechanical breath, creating an artificial organ that is metaphorically a mechanical requiem that sounds incessantly. The organ plays a drone with a F major fifth chord (F – C), a reference to the op. 45 by Johannes Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem (German Requiem) for “soloists, choir, orchestra and organ ad libitum”. The church of Ulldecona castle will resonate in all its immensity.

Curated by Arnau Horta. Picture courtesy Alberta Pane Galerie, Paris/Venice