Oliver Beer (born 1985) is a British artist who lives and works between London and Paris. He makes sculptures, installations, videos, and immersive live performances.
Biography Oliver Beer studied musical composition at the Academy of Contemporary Music, London; visual art at the University of Oxford; and theory of cinema at the Sorbonne, Paris.
His background in both music and fine art led to an early interest in the relationship between sound and space, particularly the voice and architecture. He has translated his research into performances in which spectators take part and he makes sculptures and videos that embody the plastic expression of this relationship and the way the human body experiences it. Within and alongside his work with sound, Oliver Beer creates diverse sculpture, installation and film projects.
Beer's work has been the subject of many solo and group exhibitions, notably at Met Breuer, Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA PS1, New York; Centre Pompidou, Opéra Garnier, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Palais de Tokyo and Château of Versailles, Paris; the macLyon, Lyon; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; WIELS, Brussels and the Sydney and Istanbul biennales. Beer was included in the British Art Show 9 and has also held residencies at the Palais de Tokyo, the Watermill Centre, Sydney Opera House and the Fondation Hermès.
Solo exhibitions
2025 Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France, Oliver Beer « Reanimation Paintings: A Thousand Voices », A two-stage project Chapter 1: Drawing and sound collection workshops (4 October 2024 – 12 January 2025) and Chapter 2: Immersive exhibition of the films produced by Oliver Beer (4 April – 13 July 2025) 2024 Almine Rech Tribeca, New York, USA, Resonance Paintings - Cat Orchestra, 14 March – 27 April 2024 2023 Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, Salzburg, Austria, Oliver Beer: Resonance Paintings - Blue Notes, 28 January – 18 March 2023 Almine Rech, Shanghai, China, Recompositions: Night Revels, 12 May – 24 June 2023 London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, London, UK, Albion Waves, 9 February – 15 July 2023 2022 Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, Seoul, South Korea, Oliver Beer: Resonance Paintings - Two Notes, 3 May – 11 June 2022 British Art Show 9, Hayward Gallery Touring, The Box, KARST, The Arts Institute's Levinsky Gallery, The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth, UK, Household Gods 2021 Opéra Garnier, Paris, France, Composition for Mouths (Songs My Mother Taught Me), 29 September – 2 October 2021 2020 Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London, UK, Oliver Beer: Oma
2019
Met Breuer, New York, USA, Vessel Orchestra, 2 July – 11 August 2019
Galerie des Arts Visuels, Quebec City, Canada, Recomposition (Baloo Stripped Bare), 16 February – 21 April 2019 University of New South Wales Gallery, Sydney, Australia, Impossible Composition, 1–23 February 2019 Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France, Household Gods, 12 January – 16 February 2019
2018 Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne Impossible Composition curated by Anaïs Lellouche, 24 March – 21 April 2018 George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY, USA Reanimation (Snow White), Video Presentation, 30 October 2018 – 1 January 2019 Ruya Foundation, Baghdad, IraqRuya Foundation, 16 April 2019 Reanimation (Alice Falling), Video Presentation, 16 November – 8 December 2018
2017
THADDAEUS ROPAC GALLERY, Ely House, London, UK, New Performance and Sculpture, 28 April 2017 – 29 July 2017 IKON GALLERY, Birmingham, UK, Solo exhibition, 15 March – 14 June 2017
2016
POMPIDOU CENTRE, Paris, France, Polyphonies curated by Christine Macel 19 October 2016 – 23 January 2017 NUIT BLANCHE, Paris, 2016 Live Stream, Pont des Arts, Paris, France, 1 October 2016 VG PRIZE EXHIBITION, London, UK August–September 2016 FRAENKEL LAB, San Francisco, USA, Reanimation (Snow White), January 2016
2015 AOYAMA MEGURO, Tokyo, Life, Death and Tennis. Daiwa Art Prize 2015 solo exhibition November–December 2015 ASAKUSA HOUSE, Tokyo, Deconstructing Sound, Daiwa Art Prize 2015 solo exhibition November–December 2015 WATERMILL CENTER, New York, Making Tristan, Watermill Center artist in residence September 2015 KILIC ALI PASA HAMAM, Istanbul, Call to Sound, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac / Istanbul Biennale September 2015 DAIWA ART PRIZE 2015, London, Daiwa Foundation Art Prize Exhibition, 12 June – 17 July 2015
2014 Diabolus in Musica, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin, France (Septembre 2014)Oliver Beer at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, on Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac's websiteAbout Diabolus in Musica in La Dispute on France Culture, a Podcast on France Culture's website Rabbit Hole, Oliver Beer, MAC Lyon, Lyon, France (6 Juin – 17 Août 2014)Oliver Beer at MAC Lyon , on MAC Lyon's website Prospectif Cinéma – Oliver Beer, Pompidou Centre, Paris, France (22 May 2014) Sunday Sessions, MoMA PS1, New York, USA (6 April 2014)MoMA PS1 Afternoon Session, MoMA PS1 Afternoon Session
2013 Composition for Hearing an Architectural space, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin,Oliver Beer on Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac France Oliver Beer, Villa Arson, Nice,Oliver Beer at Villa Arson, Webpage of Villa Arson, Nice France Outside-In, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (permanent installation),A permanent installation at IKON Gallery, Brindleyplace's website UK Out of Shot, Silencio, Paris, France
2012 Klang, Palais de Tokyo, Paris,Oliver Beer at Palais de Tokyo, on Palais de Tokyo's website France
2011 Pay and Display, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK
2010 Deep and Meaningful, MurmurART, 20 Hoxton Square, London, UK Training, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (Tower Room), UK
2009 Die Budgie History, Dolphin Gallery, Oxford, UK
2008 The Resonance Project, Abbazia di Farfa, Rome, Italy
2007 Oliver Beer, La Viande Gallery, London, UK
Public collections
Centre national des arts plastiques, FranceDeep and Meaningful by Pascale Cassagneau, CNAP's website FRAC (Fond Régional d'Art Contemporain), Île-de-France, FranceNouvelles acquisitions du Frac Ile-de-France, FRAC's website FRAC, Midi-Pyrénées, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris MACVAL, Ivry-sur-Seine, France Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, France Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Australia Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK Zabludowicz 176 Collection, London, UK Kramlich Collection, San Francisco, USA
Bibliography
2022 Oliver Beer, Resonance Paintings by Thaddaeus Ropac gallery 2017 Oliver Beer, Composition for London by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac 2017 Oliver Beer by Jonathan Watkins (ed.) Ikon Gallery 2014 Rabbit Hole, Oliver Beer, co-edited by Mac Lyon and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, texts by Thierry Raspail, Jonathan Wattkins, Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, Isabelle Bertolotti and Matthieu Lelièvre. 2014 Oliver Beer : topologies singulières, 02 magazine, text by Ingrid Luquet-Gad 2013 Oliver Beer, cahier de résidence. Fondation Hermès, text by Clément Dirier, Editions Actes Sud 2013 Voyage en territoires partagés, dir. Charlotte Moth, including a text by Oliver Beer, Editions Cercle d'Art 2013 Expérienz, Art Même No. 58 2013 The Resonance Project, Dante No. 4 2012 Arts Magazine April issue Oliver Beer: Echologiste by Francois Quintin 2012 Cahiers de résidence: Oliver Beer by Actes Sud / Fondation d'entreprise Hermès (ed.) 2012 Palais Magazine No. 16, Composition for tuning an architectural space insert. Editions Palais de Tokyo
References
External links
Oliver Beer personal artist's website