In Paradisum (2020)
two-channel sound, speakers, cloth

In responding to ‘Occupie Paradit’, a collaborative exhibition with Laure Prouvost and Alex Cecchetti I immediately thought of ‘in paradisum’ (into paradise), a chant sung at the end of the traditional requiem mass. This song is normally sung by the choir as the body is carried out of the church. The beauty of these songs is in the way the melodies float tenuously towards resolution; as the body is processed and then ‘delivered’. In my version, the music of Fauré’s famous In Paradisum is shared between two speakers, either side of a curtain in the exhibition. Partially shrouded from us, and from each other, the two parts struggle to synchronise, though there are inevitably fragile moments of resolution.

In Paradisum (2020)

Thirty Exhales is a work written for four saxophones. Each page of the score represents one 'movement' and these movements are constructed by using my own breath as a template. The individual melodies of each part are formed by blowing onto strings; photographs of this process were then traced to form simple pencil lines on paper.

The work was premiered by Simon Lee, Francesca Reich, Gemma Wild and Corrina Henderson at the Clothworkers Concert Hall, May 2006.

Thirty Exhales (2006)

Penumbra (2011)

HD video, colour, seperated sound
5 minutes, 20 seconds

Penumbra (2011) was commissioned by mima, Middlesbrough who showed it in April 2011. The work exists as both audio and video and these two elements were intentionally split across two floors of mima’s gallery spaces. Visitors were invited to move between the floors in both directions as they tried to piece together the sounds and images on display.

The work was developed with the renowned mezzo-soprano Lore Lixenberg.

Penumbra (2011)

Performed by ARCO Ensemble, for the Sonic Arts Expo, Brighton, 2009.

Arco (2008)

The Full Gamut (2014)

Sam Belinfante (born 1983) is an artist living and working in London.

Since graduating from University of Leeds (BA) and the Slade School of Fine Art (MA), Belinfante has performed and exhibited internationally - including group shows in Stoltzestrasse 11, Frankfurt; REMAP, Athens; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and Tate Britain, London.

Recently Belinfante has been combining his performance and video works in a series of live events at leading art centres, including Milton Keynes Gallery, ICA, London and Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge. Belinfante has also been working closely with Bruce Mclean on a major new opera where world-class improvisation is combined with choreographed objects, video and movement. He is currently developing a new body of work from video fragments captured whilst on a recent Anna Mahler Fellowship in Spoleto, Italy, September 2010.

Belinfante has also initiated a series of curatorial projects that operate as an extension to his studio practice and consist of a mixture of performance, choreography and collaboration. Projects have included Notations and The Voice and Nothing More in collaboration with Neil Luck at the Slade Research Centre, London, LOOPs at Chelsea Space, London and The Scuttler, with boyleANDshaw at ICA, London.

Since 2008 Belinfante has been working on a series of performances and events devised in collaboration with Hayward Touring for Every Day is a Good Day, a major retrospective of the visual artwork of John Cage.