Proximity Check!

Free guided tours for bands – an art experience to share with your bandmates
[offered August – October 2020]

Working on songs and playing gigs, hours of rehearsing and recording: bands will be familiar with the challenge of keeping different ideas and passions in proximity until they start to merge. But when it comes to album covers, music videos, stage backgrounds or band photos, a completely new kind of approximation is needed. The exhibition Approximation by Bilderbuch focused on exactly this process and presented works of various visual artists the band Bilderbuch has been collaborating with over the years. The results of these collaborations were displayed next to dedicated new works, created to reflect on the themes of the exhibition:

  • how ideas and mediums of expression can be woven together
  • the interplay between the digital and the material realm
  • the breaking of habits, conventions and boundaries
  • visibility, exposure and image
  • performance and identity

So when a different band with its own unique history and perspective enters such an exhibition room: will the images and the stories they tell feel familiar? Will they stir memories of discussions about how to develop as a band? Of turbulent photo and video shoots, possibly? Will Bilderbuch’s stage backgrounds and the plugged-in mics feel daunting and strange or like an invitation?

As a special offer, bands could experience the exhibition as part of guided tours (in English or German) and also bring fans and friends as company. The tour was free and if the band mentioned the visit on its social media accounts, the entry was free for its members. The MuseumsQuartiert shared pictures of the visit as well on its accounts and tagged the band in the posts.

Organised in cooperation with MuseumsQuartier Wien.