Timo Kahlen

Timo Kahlen (born 1966 in Berlin) is a German sound sculptor and media artist who currently lives and works in Berlin.

Life and work

Timo Kahlen is known for his sound sculptures and site-specific sound art works, installations with steam, wind and light, as well as experimental net art, video and photography. His interdisciplinary and intermedia body of work, often employing ephemeral, elemental materials such as wind and steam, light and shade, sound and vibration, noise and beauty, has been nominated for the German national Sound Art Prize 2006, the Kahnweiler Prize for Sculpture 2001 and the Prize for Young European Photographers 1989, as well as various scholarships in Washington D.C., Berlin, Paris and Guernsey. Kahlen's work is involved with the sculptural and conceptual aspects of immaterial phenomena and processes, and curators as Joanna Littlejohns have emphasized the ephemeral, "temporary and changeable nature" of his concentrated oeuvre. Kahlen's work has been presented in more than 140 exhibitions and retrospectives of contemporary media art since the mid-1980s, including Sound Art: Sound as a Medium of the Arts (ZKM Center for Arts and Media Technologies, Karlsruhe 2012–2013), the Mediations Biennale (Poland 2012 ), Tonspur_expanded: The Loudspeaker (Vienna, 2010–11), Noise & Beauty (Berlin 2010), 60 × 60 (New York 2010), Manifesta 7: Scenarios (Italy 2008), Sound Art: German Sound Art Prize 2006 (Marl and Cologne 2006), Wireless Experience (Helsinki 2004), Zeitskulptur: Volumen als Ereignis (Linz 1997) and the solo exhibition Timo Kahlen: Works with Wind (1991), inaugurating the Kunst-Werke in Berlin.

His installation at the Aviation Museum in Amberg in 2010 was disrupted when a cleaner mistakenly vacuumed up the two dead hornets he had placed on a loudspeaker: the installation was titled Tanz für Insekten (dance for insects) and the intention was for the dead insects to "dance" as a result of the vibrations. Rather than kill more hornets, he replaced them with dead houseflies.

Kahlen received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Berlin University of the Arts, where he studied under Professor Dieter Appelt and held a lectureship in Visual Media and Video Art from 1993 to 1998.

Exhibitions (selection)

2013: Media Art Histories: Renew, International Conference, Riga / Latvia 2012: Sound Art: Sound as a Medium of the Arts, ZKM Center for Art and Media Technologies, Karlsruhe / Germany 2012: Mediations Biennale: The Unknown, Poznan / Poland 2012: Directors Lounge, Berlin / Germany 2011: Ruido de Fronteira: Eletronika Festival, Belo Horizonte / Brazil 2011: An Exchange with Sol LeWitt, MASS MoCA, Massachusetts / USA 2011: Luftkunst, Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen / Germany 2010: Tonspur_expanded: The Loudspeaker, freiraum Quartier21, Vienna / Austria 2010: SIGHT.SOUND (INTERACTION) 5, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore / USA 2009: naturasnaturans, Casello delle Polveri, Certosa, Venice / Italy 2008: MANIFESTA 7 Biennale, Fortezza / Italy 2007: Sonic Image: Totally Huge New Music Festival, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth / Australia 2007: Strictly Berlin, Berlin / Germany 2006: Sound Art: Deutscher Klangkunst-Preis 2006, Art Cologne, Cologne / Germany 2006: Timo Kahlen: Earcatcher, Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin / Germany 2006: Deutscher Klangkunst-Preis 2006, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl / Germany 2006: 40jahrevideokunst.de – was fehlt?, Deutscher Kuenstlerbund, Berlin / Germany 2005: Media Dirt, Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin / Germany 2004: Wireless Experience, ISEA 2004 at Kiasma National Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki / Finland 2002: Zewidewit Zizidaeh, Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin /Germany 2001: Timo Kahlen, the gallery, International Artist in Residence Programme, Guernsey / GB 2001: Staubrauschen, Galerie Pankow, Berlin / Germany 2000: Licht. Zeit. Klang. Raum, Schwartzsche Villa, Berlin / Germany 2000: Liquid Light, Galerie im Parkhaus, Berlin / Germany 1997: Zeitskulptur: Volumen als Ereignis, Oberoesterreichische Landesgalerie, Linz / Austria 1997: Stroemung, Soma Projektgalerie, Berlin / Germany 1995: Stipendiaten der Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft, Berlin / Germany 1995: Leerraum, Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin / Germany 1995: Lichtstaub, Galerie Voges + Deisen, Frankfurt am Main / Germany 1994: 3 Deutschland, DC Arts Center, Washington D.C. / USA 1994: Art(s) d'Europe: Emerging Artists in Europe Today, Goethe-Institut Paris / France 1993: Immaterialien, Galerie Voges + Deisen, Frankfurt am Main / Germany 1992: (ueber Zeit) am Bauhaus, Bauhaus Dessau / Germany 1992: Kunststudenten stellen aus, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn / Germany 1992: Deutscher Kuenstlerbund, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen / Germany 1991: Die Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Kunsthalle Palazzo, Basel / Switzerland 1991: Photography as Object, Galerie Ghislave, Paris / France 1991: Objekte in Originalgroeße, Hochschule der Künste Berlin, Berlin / Germany 1991: Timo Kahlen: Arbeiten mit Wind, KUNST-WERKE Berlin / Germany 1989: Prize for Young European Photographers, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main / Germany 1989: Timo Kahlen: Erste Arbeiten, Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin / Germany