ABOUT

Moritz Fehr is an artist and researcher working in a conceptual and place-based approach with sound and moving images. To create his projects, he explores constellations of objectivity and emotion, technology and nature, as well as psychological and political aspects of listening. He often realizes his works as site-specific installations or in the form of hyperreal simulations and environments in which spatial sound and spatial images are used to reconstruct existing sites or create fictional spaces.

An abandoned gold- and copper mine, the empty frame of the stolen painting The Concert by Vermeer, the Veterinary Anatomy Theatre in Berlin and two large-scale panoramic paintings have been, among others, subjects of his work. Since early 2022, Data Acquisition (A Song of Sadness), a spatial sound composition realized in Ambisonics and Wave-Field-Synthesis, is permanently exhibited at the Listening Space of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.

His projects have been presented internationally, for example at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten (Marl), Barrick Museum of Art (Las Vegas), Youkobo Art Space (Tokyo), The Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles), Kunstsaele (Berlin), Beyond 3D Festival ZKM (Karlsruhe), Ethnological Museum (Berlin), After the Butcher Gallery (Berlin), Tieranatomisches Theater (Berlin), European Media Arts Festival (Osnabrück), Universalmuseum Joanneum (Graz), Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum (Washington DC), Arko Art Center (Seoul), Kunstverein Hildesheim, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum (Dresden), Goethe-Institute (Paris) and Kunstmuseum Basel.

Works that were realized as long-term or permanent sound installations can be visited at the Velaslavasay Panorama (Los Angeles), Jerusalem Panorama (Altoetting), Continuous Drift (Dublin) and at the Mahn‑ und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück (Memorial Museum Ravensbrück).

Occasionally, he holds lectures and presentations on the theory and practice of engaging with sound, virtuality and space. Institutions include the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen, Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (Film Studies), Firestation Artist Studios Dublin, FH Joanneum Graz and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

Moritz Fehr lives and works in Berlin. He studied Media Art and Design at Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany and Inter Media Art at the Tokyo National University of the Arts in Japan, where he lived for a year between 2006 and 2007. Also at Bauhaus-University Weimar, he completed a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. He was awarded scholarships by the State of Thuringia (graduate scholarship), the Bauhaus Research School Weimar, the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and Stiftung Kunstfonds Neustart Kultur.

Photo credit: Volker Möllenhoff, Akademie der Bildenden Künste München
Photo credit: Leonie Kircher

MORE INFORMATION ON EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS

Composing Data Aquisiton (A song of sadness)
Gugak Nuri, Magazine of the National Gugak Center, Seoul, September 2022, pg. 18-23.

Radio X (Basel) on Pissarro Sounds
A short radio feature on the exhibition Camille Pissarro: The Studio of Modernism, including Pissarro Sounds, by Paul von Rosen, October 2021

Immersivity in Films: A Film and Media Studies Perspective
Laura Katharina Mücke in: Immersivity: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Spaces of Immersion (Essay, 2020)
Ambiances, International Journal of Sensory Environment, Architecture and Urban Space, Varia, Online since 11 December 2020

Sound Unheard – An Exhibition at the Goethe-Institut Paris
Daniele Balit, Katharina Scriba and Anne Zeitz
The exhibition Sound Unheard took place at the Goethe-Institut Paris/France from 13 September to 27 October 2019. It was curated by Daniele Balit, Katharina Scriba and Anne Zeitz. The exhibition was co-produced by the Gaîté Lyrique and realized in cooperation with the German Center for Art History in Paris.
kunsttexte.de, Nr. 1, 2020

More than Meets the Eye – The Magic of the Panorama
A publication of the International Panorama Council edited by Gabriele Koller. It includes essays by 29 authors who take a look at the panorama phenomenon from different angles and perspectives – all of them united by the fascination with the magic of the art form which offers more than meets the eye. 
The International Panorama Council, Published by Büro Wilhelm Verlag, Amberg, 2019

In The Company of Artists
Texts and essays by Claire Barliant, Pieranna Cavalchini, Audrey Hsia, Casey Riley and Tiffany York
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's Artist-In-Residence Program is one of the oldest in the country, arguably beginning in the early days of the Museum when Gardner's friend John Singer Sargent stated in an apartment on the ground floor, using a room on the third floor as a studio. In 1992, the Museum began inviting artists to once again stay on the premises and respond to the collection, offering fresh perspectives to Gardner's creation. This book reflects on the AIR Program from its inception until today, revealing the surprising insights and discoveries that arise when contemporary artists are given space and time to research and develop new work in an extraordinary setting.
Published by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2019


Kunst & Kohle - The Battle of Coal
Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018
In 2018, coal production will cease in Germany, marking the end of an important industrial sector that has shaped the Ruhr Valley more than any other cultural region for more than 150 years. Seventeen museums in thirteen cities throughout the Ruhr Valley have taken the fossil-fuel phase-out as an occasion to present a transregional art project featuring works by both emerging and established artists focusing on themes revolving around coal and mining.
Wienand Verlag Köln, 2018

The Barrick Museum's 'Preservation' mounts a stunning visual defense against loss
Dawn-Michelle Baude in: Las Vegas Weekly, October 2017

Sound art at the Gardner: Seeing with your ears
Cate McQuaid in: Boston Globe, March 2017

Thoughts on ListenHear at the Gardner, Review of Listen Hear: The Art of Sound
DJ Hatfield, March 2017

At Boston’s Gardner Museum, It’s Time to “Listen Hear”
Michael Levin in: The Huffington Post, March 2017

Undersound (Moritz Fehr)
Exhibition Catalogue, 2015
Essays by Kathrin Meyer, Clemens Krümmel and Florian Sprenger.
Design and Layout by Gunnar Green.
The artist book "Undersound" is published on the occasion of Moritz Fehr’s solo exhibition at the Hildesheimer Kunstverein
Published by Kunstverein Hildesheim and Argobooks, Berlin 2015.

Die Mur. Eine Kulturgeschichte.
Interview with Moritz Fehr by Bettina Habsburg-Lothringen in: Die Mur. Eine Kulturgeschichte, Bettina Habsburg-Lothringen (Hrsg.)
Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Exhibition Catalogue, 2015


Contact

studio ( at ) moritzfehr.de