Hymn
Maximilian Erbacher, 2008
Information
Created in 2008, Hymn is a video work with a duration of 3:65 minutes, presented as a high-resolution projection. The installation and curation were handled by The Met Hotel.
Artistic Context
Maximilian Erbacher (b. 1970, Rosenheim, Germany) is a multifaceted artist who studied in Ireland (University of Ulster) and Germany (Academy for Media Arts, Cologne). His work, which includes installations, photography, and video, explores the timeless human yearning for “home” within the disconnected world of globalization.
In Hymn, Erbacher engages with “Beichle Jutz,” a traditional song performed by hundreds of Swiss yodelers at the annual Yodeling Festival in Aarau. The artist appears in the role of an airport “marshaler”—a metaphorical image of our hyper-mobile, globalized reality—and silently “conducts” the song without sound. The result is a visual interpretation of how rituals and cultural codes are presented as authentic, even though they have already been altered by modern mass reproduction media.
Placement & Dynamics at The Met
Hymn is presented in a quiet, interior space of The Met Hotel, where the screen becomes a window into a regulated yet emotionally charged microcosm. The placement of the work allows visitors to stop, stand still for a few minutes, and absorb the poetry of the gesture and Erbacher’s silent ritual.
This work reinforces the intercultural character of the hotel’s art collection and gives voice (or more accurately, the absence of voice) to an underlying global melancholy—an attempt to reconnect with something that has already been lost.
Why it deserves your attention
- Embodied Metaphor: The artist “marshals” memory and tradition without sound—only through gesture.
- A Silent Scale Experience: A work that inverts the loudness of the image and offers time for introspection.
- Contemporary Poetry: Hymn is more of a silent prayer to the authenticity of belonging than a conventional video.