September 27, 2008 – January 4, 2009
Akron Art Museum
Akron, Ohio (EE.UU)

Montréal artist, inventor and musician Jean-Pierre Gauthier brings humor and poetry to his kinetic sculptural installations. This exhibition, the first survey of the award-winning artist’s work, will make its exclusive U.S. appearance at the Akron Art Museum.

Gauthier ingeniously transforms electrical cable, funnels, pulleys and other industrial and everyday objects into living, moving, singing organisms. His dynamic installations invoke the opposing forces of order and chaos, permanence and fragility. Each work invites the viewer to experience and interact with its visual, sound, and moving parts.

Among the works featured in the exhibition is Beats and Butterflies, a spectacular glistening piano that plays when viewers move through the room. Gauthier in fact views all of his materials as instruments. In Rut, motors, wires, microphones, mixing boards and amplifiers are set in motion to create mesmerizing rhythmic and auditory movements. The seemingly jumbled network of conduits is in fact a highly orchestrated mechanism that creates a multi-sensory experience of space and time.

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