The Name of This Band Is The Art (Tel Aviv-Yafo) is a project by Ari Benjamin Meyers featuring Din Bar, Rachel Levian, Rony Shefer, Gaya Wajsman, and in collaboration with Alexandre Cruz “Sesper,” Asaf Eden (Ryskinder), Wisam Gibran, Ido Gordon, Shai-Lee Horodi, Sharon Kantor, Maya Landsmann, Saher Miari, Zohar Shafir (Nico Teen), Nissan Shor, Muhammad Toukhy.
From the curatorial text by Arnon Ben-Dror: The decision to carry out this project, at this time, is not an easy one. In the end, it stems from a deep conviction in the significance of art – especially art that brings people together and fosters a dialogue between different voices – precisely in such a tragic and contentious moment as we now find ourselves. The practice of Ari Benjamin Meyers – born in 1972 in New York and based in Berlin – is ultimately based on two foundations: music and people. Meyers began his career as a composer and conductor, but quickly sought ways to circumvent the typical musical experience provided in traditional concert venues, where a clear separation is maintained between audience and performers and where music is consumed much like an object – that is, as a well-packaged product, mediated by professional musicians to a relatively passive crowd. Contemporary art spaces provided him with the freedom to break down familiar performative conventions, work with non-professionals, and explore what really fascinates him about music: the unique ways in which it weaves relationships between people.
This is also what lies at the heart of this current project, The Name of This Band Is The Art (Tel Aviv-Yafo), where Meyers forms a temporary rock band made up of art school graduates, called “The Art,” and turns CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo’s Ground Floor Gallery into its rehearsal room for an entire month. Din Bar (guitar), Rachel Levian(vocals), Rony Shefer (drums) and Gaya Wajsman (bass), who joined the band via auditions held with the artist last summer in Tel Aviv, will be present in the exhibition space, in different constellations, throughout the Center’s opening hours. The exhibition will follow their working process on a set of ten songs – based on ten scores composed by Meyers and assembled in a songbook – leading up to the band’s one and only concert on the closing night of the exhibition, after which the band will break up. At the concert, a fanzine designed by Alexandre Cruz “Sesper” (who also designed the poster for the project), documenting the band’s process as well as the exhibition’s different collateral events, will also be presented.
