Ari Benjamin Meyers studied conducting and composition at the Juilliard School, Yale University, and the Peabody Institute. A Fulbright Scholarship brought him to Berlin in the late 1990s, where he has lived and worked ever since. His work explores structures and processes that redefine the performative, social, and ephemeral nature of music, as well as the relationship between performers and audiences.
His work has been presented internationally at major institutions, festivals, and biennials, including the Shanghai Biennial (2026), KINDL Berlin (2025), Kunstverein Braunschweig (2025), Fondazione In Between Art Film (2024), Steirischer Herbst (2024), MUDAM (2023), Berliner Festspiele (2023), Festival d’Avignon (2023), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2022), Theatertreffen Berlin (2022), MAAT Lisbon (2021), Kunstsammlung Gera (2021), Neues Museum Nuremberg (2020), VAC Foundation Moscow (2019), Pinault Collection / Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019), Liverpool Biennial (2018), Witte de With, Rotterdam (2018), Biennale de Lyon (2017), Lenbachhaus, Munich (2017), and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2016).
During his residency at Villa Kamogawa, Meyers will begin work on a new project provisionally titled “Fugue States”. The project focuses on time, memory, music, and ritual as they are expressed in Japan. To this end, he will collaborate with senior day-care centres in the Kyoto region, interviewing and filming professional and amateur musicians and singers living with varying stages of dementia as they rehearse a new performance together.
