A concert in an exhibition is, first of all, an invitation to return. But it can also be more than an extra date in the calendar: when music reorders the space, its objects and the audience’s attention, the accompanying programme itself becomes part of the artistic encounter. In Fribourg, this possibility is explicitly built into the plans – though its outcome cannot be anticipated before the evening itself.
On 7 November, bela is to develop a site-specific live performance at Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg, using instruments and sound-producing objects from Mira M. Yang’s exhibition “Ensemble”. The exhibition runs from 12 September to 13 November. It closes two days after the concert. The Kunsthalle describes the performance as a collaboration with Yang; the public announcement does not specify exactly what will be heard or how the space will change for the performance.
Sound as part of the exhibition
“Ensemble” revolves around transmission, memory and what is missing from the historical record. At its centre is the artistic legacy of the dancer and singer Choi-Seung Hee (1911–1969), whose choreographies are only partially documented. Yang’s exhibition does not use these gaps as grounds for claiming a supposedly complete reconstruction. Instead, it works with translation, imagination and substitution: a film work reinterprets movements, while a sound installation, according to the Kunsthalle, translates movement notation into signals for machines.
In such a context, a concert is not automatically an intrusion. It can make an existing work audible in a different way – particularly when the musician does not simply play a separate set in the same building, but responds to material already there. The plan for bela to use the exhibition’s instruments and sound objects opens up such a connection. Whether it proves to be an extension through dialogue or more of an accompanying performance will only become clear in its actual realisation.
Between club, ritual and museum
bela’s profile suggests a practice that considers sound and performance together. The artist profile on the European platform SHAPE+ describes the work as combining electronic music with influences from Korean pungmul, a musical and performance practice associated with agricultural traditions, as well as a distinctive, extreme voice. This is context, not a description of the Fribourg performance: neither a setlist nor a line-up or precise details of the sonic means to be used have been published.
It is precisely this openness that makes the curatorial question interesting. A museum concert can draw attention to details that remain incidental during a quiet visit; but it can also bring an audience into the building primarily for one evening, without substantially engaging with the exhibition. The two are not mutually exclusive. What matters is whether the music changes the conditions of seeing and hearing – for instance, through the use of the sound objects on display, a new spatial arrangement or a duration that interrupts the usual rhythm of a visit. In Fribourg, only the collaboration and the planned use of the objects have so far been confirmed.
No neutral space
The Kunsthalle is not merely a backdrop here. When an exhibition object becomes an instrument in a concert, its role shifts: it is not simply viewed, but activated through an action. Conversely, the music enters a space whose meanings have already been shaped by Yang’s engagement with transmission, absence and embodied knowledge. This can open up connections, but also create tensions: which history does the music evoke, and which remains unheard? And who determines how cultural traditions appear in a contemporary performance?
The announcement does not answer these questions – and it should not be confused with the finished work. For now, what can be described as background is primarily the form of the project: a concert during the exhibition, in collaboration with the artist and using her sound objects. This makes something more than an additional occasion possible, but does not guarantee it. If the performance genuinely incorporates the objects and the logic of the exhibition into its musical thinking, then, for one evening, the visit will not merely be accompanied by sound. Instead, sound will change what is perceived in the space as an artwork, an instrument and a performance.
Original reviewed by the editors · 28 October 2026
