In the work of Ivan Bon, I recognize something that deeply connects me with my own experience of natural forces in painting: the constant search for an expanded sensory horizon. His exhibition Touch of Sound, carried out as part of the Multisensory Art project with the support of the Creative Europe program, represents one of the most consistent and subtle explorations of the interrelationship between matter, body, and sound that I have had the opportunity to experience in contemporary art at home.

These works are primarily intended for blind and visually impaired individuals, which makes the exhibition not only artistic but also a deeply ethical act. Bon’s approach opens a space where perception ceases to be a privilege of the eye. It returns the experience of art to its fundamental, bodily dimension, the dimension of touch, vibration, and inner rhythm.

The cycle of twelve sculptures is executed in a wide range of materials: bronze, rubber, 3D printing, stone, polyester mass, metal, and wood. This material diversity is not merely a technological choice but a carefully considered architecture of sensations. Each material has its own temperature, weight, resistance, and energy charge. Upon touching them, the entire spectrum of tactile information is activated, which in Bon’s art acts as the initial impulse, as the first breath of form.

The uniqueness of these sculptures lies in their sonic interior. Each object contains its own speaker and amplifier, from which a specially composed sound, electronically modified tones, and frequencies are emitted, not intended as an ambient addition but as the inner voice of the sculpture. This sound is not an illustration; it is the nervous system of the object. It pulsates, breathes, and opens the structure of the sculpture from the inside out. The sound code becomes its energy signature.

I am particularly drawn to Bon’s attention to tactile reading of form. In his work, touch is not merely a way of recognizing volume; touch is an act of activation. Texture, roughness, smoothness, the coldness of metal, or the softness of rubber: all of this builds a parallel narrative that expands what is heard and connects the observer’s body with the object. In this way, sound is no longer just an acoustic phenomenon but a physical event that “settles” in the hand, skin, and muscle.

The sculptures are designed as diptychs, six pairs, each functioning as a small independent sound unit. The sound is divided into left and right channels, allowing the sculptures to communicate with each other through spatial dynamics and dialogue. This duality, this “conversation” of channels, creates a moving acoustic landscape that we experience not only with hearing and touch but with the whole body. A sense of vibration, pulsation, and internal circulation of energy emerges in the space.

For me, as an artist dealing with the energy of light and its impact on matter, Bon’s work opens a field where sound becomes a new kind of natural force, a force that transforms space and form, as well as ourselves as observers. Touch of Sound is an exhibition that transcends the boundaries of the visual and enters the realm of holistic experience, where sculpture becomes an event, and matter becomes the medium of inner landscapes.

With this cycle, Ivan Bon has created a work that teaches us to listen to form and “see” sound. In a time overloaded with visual signs, Touch of Sound acts as a return to essence, a reminder that art emerges where senses intertwine, where matter speaks, and where the body becomes the most reliable instrument of perception.

Đorđe Stanojević