ARTNEWS: Artist Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar to present Mongolia at 2019 Venice Biennale

Mongolian throat singing—a centuries-old practice of complex vocalizing that results in multiple pitches issuing at once in a seeming chorus of solo means—will be the focus of “a TEMPORALITY,” an interdisciplinary group project to serve as the focus of Mongolia’s pavilion at next spring’s Venice Biennale.

Mongolian artist E.Jantsankhorol will create an environment in which artists can work and perform in forms inspired by overtone singing, with sounds to be recorded and installed during the Biennale. Among the artists invited to interact is Carsten Nicolai, aka Alva Noto, a German artist and electronic-music maker who will work with throat singers in Ulaanbaatar and bring the results to Venice for the Biennale opening in May.

Curated by Gantuya Badamgarav, “a TEMPORALITY” aims to engage throat singing’s relationship to nature and ways in which it has been used to communicate with different forces. “Nowadays interaction between human-being and nature is almost extinct,” an exhibition announcement reads. “We created human-made environment surrounding us, like concrete blocks, glasses, panels and asphalts to interact with.” Throat singing, by contrast, is more weightless and weighty than all that.

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Image: Breath in Breath Out, courtesy of Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar