Haus der Kunst

The exhibition Meredith Monk. Calling will be the first exhibition in Europe dedicated to the artist‘s multidisciplinary work, presenting her oeuvre as innovative, multisensorial installations, embracing the cross-disciplinary way in which she has worked throughout her career.

Monk pushes the boundaries of music, theatre, dance, video, and installation, seamlessly working across disciplines while continuously exploring the evocative power and dimensionality of the human voice. She is considered a groundbreaking figure in sitespecific performance, and her interdisciplinary approach has had a significant influence on subsequent generations of artists and performers. While Monk is widely recognised in the worlds of music and theatre, the exhibition at Haus der Kunst is dedicated to her multidisciplinary work from across the last six decades.

Drawing on three years of research, the retrospective aims to widen the reception of Monk’s genre- and gender-defying oeuvre. The innovative performance forms she developed, and in particular her extended vocal technique, call for a long overdue analysis of her practice. While Monk’s early site-specific works will be carefully restaged in the form of “time capsules”, her multimedia work, referred to as “shrines” by the artist—a personal definition of “immersive environments”, will be presented in an engaging and thoughtprovoking manner, aimed at pushing the conventions of exhibition-making.

This first survey on the oeuvre of Meredith Monk is a collaboration in two acts at Haus der Kunst München and Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, together with the Hartwig Art Foundation. The exhibition is developed in close collaboration with Meredith Monk and The House Foundation for the Arts. The exhibition at Haus der Kunst München is curated by Anna Schneider with Teresa Retzer, and designed in collaboration with Milan-based architects 2050+.

A new book, Meredith Monk. Calling, will be published in January 2024, presenting this first comprehensive career survey encompassing in-depth analysis of her genre-defying work. Edited by Anna Schneider with contributions by Hilton Als, Siri Engberg, Andrea Lissoni, Bonnie Marranca, Rick Moody, Timothy Morton, Teresa Retzer, Beatrix Ruf, Adam Shatz, Louise Steinman and others. Meredith Monk – The Recordings, a 13-CD limited box set edition is issued by Munich-based ECM Recordings compiling all Meredith Monk’s releases on the label since Dolmen Music in 1981. The box includes a 300-page book reprising all the original liner notes, as well as new texts and interviews.