Funkhaus Berlin
Berlin, Germany
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No 1 in D major “The Titan”
Lolo & Sosaku
Utopia Orchestra
Teodor Currentzis — Conductor
Lolo & Sosaku
The project is supported by the Aventis Foundation.
On 9 May at Funkhaus, the Utopia’s creative residence, the evening is set as a special programme. The evening opens with Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, performed by the Utopia Orchestra under the direction of Teodor Currentzis. The second part of the programme features Lolo & Sosaku — an Argentine-Japanese avant-garde artist duo.
Mahler’s debut symphony (1888) stands among the most radiant works of late Romanticism — its “last roses.” According to the composer’s letters, the symphony’s “protagonist” is a young man of pure heart, naïve and open to the world, who must endure trials and losses, encounter pain, disappointment, and hypocrisy — and through them attain maturity. Here one recognizes the structure of the classical Bildungsroman — the coming-of-age narrative in which personal growth is inseparable from suffering. In its early version, the symphony even bore a subtitle alluding to a novel by the German Romantic writer Jean Paul.
Later, Mahler renounced any programmatic explanations, allowing the music to speak for itself. The symphony opens wie ein Naturlaut — “as if it were a sound of nature” — with a barely audible A that rises through the orchestra from the lowest to the highest register: an infinite, cosmic tone from which the contours of a world slowly emerge. Within this world unfolds the hero’s path — from bright hopes and youthful wonder to encounters with banality, falseness, and the cry of pain that opens the finale. Yet Mahler ends his First Symphony in dazzling light — an affirmation of life and renewal.
Lolo & Sosaku explore the possibilities of sculpture as an expanded field. The core of their work is the search for an object in contact with its surroundings and the spectator—an object that seeks friction and tension, exploring its ability to generate new meanings.
Their work moves between different artistic languages, including sculpture, installation, kinetic art, and painting, often incorporating music and sound. Their modus operandi is to establish themselves as a subject and, through their machinic materiality, reach transcendence, mysticism, and the unknown.