On the occasion of Kaarel Kurismaa’s exhibition Intermezzo, Kunsthalle Zürich is pleased to invite Kurismaa’s longtime collaborator, the artist Kiwa, for a sound performance. In the early 2000s Kurismaa and Kiwa began collaborating during the Metabor Festival, which they co-founded. Within this framework they developed synchronized sound situations that included, amongst other elements, live performances with Kurismaa’s sound objects. The live set at Kunsthalle Zürich continues this collaboration, activating the sculptures in the context of the exhibition.
Kiwanoid (alias Kiwa) is an Estonian interdisciplinary artist active since the early 1990s. He has participated in over 400 exhibitions and festivals internationally, including presentations at Moderna Museet (Malmö), Tate Modern (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and The Kitchen (New York).
His practice moves across sound, visual art, performance, and text, forming an ongoing hypertextual inquiry into meaning-production, cultural codes, and the construction of collective and personal mythologies.
He began experimenting with sound in the late 1980s, played in several high-velocity punk bands during the 1990s, and transitioned to experimental electronic music around 2000, focusing on unconventional sonic structures and original compositional systems. His recordings have been released by Mille Plateaux and Glitch Please.