Monika Weiss. Metamorphosis (Sound Sculpture), 2024. Steel, sound, Dimensions variable, run time 35 minutes. Laumeier Sculpture Park Commission. Photo: ProPhotoSTL.

MONIKA WEISS: METAMORPHOSIS (SOUND SCULPTURE)

2024 VISITING ARTIST IN RESIDENCE / KRANZBERG EXHIBITION SERIES ARTIST

ON THE ART HIKE TRAIL / August 24, 2024 - May 18, 2025

Laumeier Sculpture Park is proud to announce its 2024 Visiting Artist in Residence and Kranzberg Exhibition Artist, Polish artist Monika Weiss. Weiss presents Metamorphosis (Sound Sculpture), a sculptural and sonic installation dedicated to victims of gender-based violence perpetuated around the world.

The outdoor installation consists of two steel columns emitting sound, installed along the Park’s wooded Art Hike Trail. The columns, situated like beacons, project audio during selected times throughout the day beginning at sunrise and ending at sunset, marking the times of transition in the daily cycle while observing the changeability of our natural environment.

Weiss’ residency at Laumeier is accompanied by two live vocal performances with participation of local vocalists. Presentations include Orgē, a performance at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden and Metamorphosis (Performance in the Park), on the Art Hike Trail at Laumeier.

Metamorphosis (Sound Sculpture) is inspired by the story of the mythological nymph Daphne who transforms herself into a tree to escape a violent attack. The original five movement composition is based on Weiss’ recordings of her own acoustic piano improvisations and vocal compositions, re-composed electronically. Weiss wrote a sixth movement for Laumeier, which the artist composed for voices and percussion, and recorded with local vocalists Katie Beyers, soprano and Ingrid Piazza, mezzo soprano.

Weiss invites visitors “to immerse themselves within this sonic field, where there is no beginning and no end. During the periods of time when the columns stand silent, I hope they will provide a solace through their quiet strength and heaviness, akin to trees that became women warriors.”

Working through installation, performance, sound, film, and drawing, Weiss poetically responds to questions of the body, history, memory and violence.  Laumeier Curator Dana Turkovic states, “Monika Weiss has created a powerful multi-dimensional experience utilizing sound, sculpture, and nature. I am thrilled to present it at Laumeier, as I believe her profound message of adversity and transformation will resonate with our visitors.” 

The 35-minute musical composition plays daily at the following times: 7:30 a.m.; 10 a.m.; 12:30 p.m.; 3 p.m.; and 5:30 p.m.

A sound sculpture titled Metamorphosis-Przemiana (2021-) by Monika Weiss is a sister project that opened to public on July 27, 2024, and is now part of the permanent collection of Sculpture Park, Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, National Heritage Institution of Poland. The work is curated by Mariusz Andrzejczyk. During the unveiling of the piece, the artist conducted a percussive performance using mallets to gently hit the surface of the sculpture as if it was a musical instrument.

Washington People: Monika Weiss - The Source - Washington University in St. Louis

Public Programs

ARTIST TALK / Thursday, Sept. 12 / 6:30 p.m. / 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis, 1528 Locust St, St. Louis / Free

Join the artist for a presentation of her recent work and current project at Laumeier Sculpture Park, Metamorphosis (Sound Sculpture).

PERFORMANCE / Orgē / Saturday, Sept. 14 / 9 a.m. / Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden / 4344 Shaw Blvd, St. Louis / *Performance is included with Garden admission (free for St. Louis City and County residents on Saturdays before noon; proof of residency required).

Orgē belongs to an ongoing series of vocal and choreographed projects. Orgē is dedicated to all victims of wars, invasions, and colonial occupations. Conceived as a site-specific choral environment, the piece resembles a forest of voices. Organized in collaboration with Laumeier Sculpture Park, the live performance will take place at Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden, curated jointly by Nezka Pfeifer, museum curator, Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum, and Dana Turkovic, curator, Laumeier Sculpture Park.

PERFORMANCE / Metamorphosis (Performance in the Park) / Thursday, Oct. 10 / 5 p.m. / On the Art Hike Trail, Laumeier Sculpture Park / Free / RSVP requested

Metamorphosis (Performance in the Park) is a composition for live voices and choreography of movement. Metamorphosis (Performance in the Park) is inspired by the moment in which mythological nymph Daphne self-transforms into a tree to escape a violent attack. Vocalists and dance performers are interspersed on the trail near Weiss’ sculpture, becoming, in the artist’s words “almost like the trees. While composing this work, I imagined how it would sound if my own skin became a tree bark, and my voice morphed into the whispers of leaves.”

CAMPFIRE CHAT / Thursday, Oct. 10 / 6 p.m. / Estate House Lawn, Laumeier Sculpture Park / Free / RSVP requested

Immediately following her performance, please join artist Monika Weiss and art therapist Tamara Eberle for a conversation centered around how artists address trauma in their work. Eberle was Laumeier’s 2022 Community Artist in Residence.

Public performances at the Missouri Botanical Garden and Laumeier Sculpture Park are sponsored by Christner Architects.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Monika Weiss is an intermedia artist based in New York since 2000. She creates sound and film installations, drawings, public projects, and performances, often performing herself or choreographing others, especially women, in a symbolic act of unforgetting in response to sites and events of shared trauma. Weiss’ work has been presented in over 100 exhibitions worldwide and is part of public collections and numerous publications.

Weiss' solo museum exhibitions include Museum of Memory & Human Rights, Santiago, Chile; Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko; and Lehman College Art Gallery, City University of New York. Her public projects include World Financial Center Winter Garden, New York; City of Dresden, Germany; and former German concentration camp in Gruenberg, today Zielona Gora, Poland. Group exhibitions include North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks; Muzeum Montanelli, Prague; Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Athens; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami; A.I.R. Gallery, New York; and lokal_30, Warsaw. Since 2011 the artist divides her time between her Brooklyn studio and her professorship at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis. In this video from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s series, Artists on Artworks, Weiss shares her insights on the work of Spanish artist Francisco Goya and reflects on her own transdisciplinary practice, which investigates relationships between the body and history and evokes rituals of lamentation in response to tragedy.

Laumeier Sculpture Park’s ongoing operations and programs are generously supported by St. Louis County Parks; with support from the Regional Arts Commission; Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; among other corporations, foundations, individual donors and members.

2024 Exhibitions are supported by Whitaker Foundation, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, Ken and Nancy Kranzberg, Joan and Mitchell Markow and Two Sister’s Foundation, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, and Mary Ann and Andy Srenco.

Monika Weiss and the Visiting Artist in Residence Program are supported by Windgate Foundation. Weiss is the 2024 Kranzberg Exhibition Artist. This fund, generously provided by Ken and Nancy Kranzberg, supports the presentation of new work by one or more St. Louis area artists per year. The Visiting Artist in Residence Program is sponsored by 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis. The artist received additional support from Polish Cultural Institute New York.