Marcus Fischer. "Untitled (Words of Concern)", 2017. From the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Photo by Jim Golden / “MASS”, 2022 - Artist with installation in progress, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
Marcus Fischer creates, collects, and transforms sound into immersive, layered compositions that accompany performances and exhibitions.
Site-specific assemblages of exposed speakers, tape loops, and objects are characteristic of his installations, paired with melodies of restraint and tension. He has released numerous recordings—both solo and collaborative —on 12k, a label that has decisively defined and developed its own concept of minimalism in the realms of experimental and ambient music. He contributed works to the 2019 Whitney Biennial as the sole artist from the Pacific Northwest included in the edition. Fischer has been awarded residencies at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Rauschenberg Residency and at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.
Says the artist: “My work is deeply influenced by the socio-political climate, and I aim to shed light on the experiences of marginalized voices.”
“Marcus’s work addresses ‘scales of place and scales of time’ (my words).” says Stephanie Snyder, Curator and Director of the Douglas. F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College, “He examines sound’s relationship to specific built environments, such as homes and public spaces, and specifically places where actions or events take place over specific periods of time. For instance, in a recent sculptural project, Marcus used sound to convey the number of mass shootings in the United States over a one-year period. He is one of few artists in the Pacific Northwest using sound as a medium of social analysis and expression, and I believe his work serves as a sophisticated model for other artists and the public.”