Tarek Atoui: Improvisation in 10 Days

From February 6 to July 20, 2025, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents Improvisation in 10 Days, the first solo exhibition in Italy by artist and electro-acoustic composer Tarek Atoui.

Known for his distinctive approach to music, Tarek Atoui (Beirut, 1980; lives and works in Paris) investigates the acoustic properties of elements such as water, air, stone, and bronze and the ways in which they absorb sound and return it with unexpected nuances. The sonic environments created by the ensemble of the works in the space suggest possible listening experiences and stimulate non-traditional learning processes.

Improvisation in 10 Days, curated by Lucia Aspesi, is the title of Tarek Atoui’s exhibition. “In Milan, my proposal is an homage to improvisation”, explains the artist. Borrowing a specific term from the lexicon of music, Atoui explores the potential of composition in space, bringing the material, sculptural, architectural and relational qualities of the works into dialogue with the immaterial nature of sound and its reverberation in bodies and things. Using the gallery as a large blank canvas, the artist rearranges and recomposes works from one of his previous exhibitions, starting from the identity of the space (a place of production) and the time coordinates (the days on which the artist will set up the exhibition) and using them to “improvise” movements, harmonies, and tunings to create a collective experience in a sonic environment. This is the first time that Atoui has conceived an exhibition as an actual device capable of evolving and materializing over time in a given situation, creating a dynamic relationship between space, instruments, and people. The true potential of the project lies in its “dynamic” status, in its openness to chance.

As the artist explains, “There is no loop, there is no beginning and end in the sense of a musical composition or structure that starts and ends. There’s a cycle that is always transforming, and a relationship between instruments that is always changing”.

The exhibition presents three bodies of work, harmoniously displayed in space and in dialogue with natural light: Souffle Continu (2022-24), Waters’ Witness (2020-23), and The Rain (2023-24).

Catalog
The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph published by Marsilio Editori. Through a poetic visual narrative, the volume will present the exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca and the artist’s previous solo exhibitions at three international institutions: Kunsthaus Bregenz, S.M.A.K Gent (2024), and Institut d’art contemporain—Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (2023). The book, designed by Goda Budvytyte, is the result of a collaboration between these four European institutions and will include a critical essay by curator Ute Meta Bauer that examines Atoui’s practice. In addition to the catalog, it will be realized a vinyl set featuring recordings of Atoui’s instruments activated by international musicians, including Jad Atuoi, Nicolas Becker, Laure Boer, Gobu Drab, Susanna Gartmayer, Charbel Haber, Mazen Kerbaj, Eric La Casa, Boris Shershenkov, DJ Snif, and Ziúr.

Public program
Thursday, 29 May 2025: sound performance with Tarek Atoui

Workshops
On the occasion of the exhibition, two workshops conceived by Tarek Atoui are presented and open to both children and adults. The workshops On Vibration and Resonance–The Hive and Drops and Bubbles–The Rain aim to introduce participants to the concept of vibration as it propagates through air and different materials, and to explore water and its ability to amplify and propagate sound and to make objects vibrate.

Pirelli HangarBicocca
Pirelli HangarBicocca is a non-profit foundation dedicated to producing and promoting contemporary art. It was conceived and is supported by Pirelli. Established in 2004, Pirelli HangarBicocca has become a benchmark institution for the international and local art community. The museum is free of charge, accessible and open, as well as a place for experimentation, research and dissemination. It presents a programme of major solo exhibitions, multi-disciplinary events, publications, and educational courses.

Vicente Todolí has been the foundation’s artistic director since 2012.

Situated in a former industrial building, once a locomotive manufacturing facility, Pirelli HangarBicocca occupies 15,000 square metres, making it one of the largest single-level exhibition spaces in Europe. This vast area comprises the permanent installation of Anselm Kiefer’s The Seven Heavenly Palaces 2004-2015.