Tomás Saraceno's first permanent installation in southern Europe opens in Barcelona

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, March 28, 2024


Tomás Saraceno's first permanent installation in southern Europe opens in Barcelona
Installation views of Cloud Cities Barcelona, 2022. Courtesy Studio Tomás Saraceno and Mirador torre Glòries. Photography Studio Tomás Saraceno © Tomás Saraceno.



BARCELONA.- Cloud Cities Barcelona, by artist Tomás Saraceno, invites participants into a space of communal encounter, discourse, and critical speculation, suspended at a height of over 130 meters over the city of Barcelona. Opening on May 20th, 2022, and housed in the 360° observation deck of Mirador Torre Glòries, it will be Saraceno’s first permanent interactive sculpture in southern Europe. The artwork occupies an area of 130m³ and is composed of 113 cloud spaces, like droplets of water condensing along the strands of a three-dimensional spider’s web, made of 5000 nodes connecting 6km of tensile cables.

Moving through the air at a height between 4 and 10m relative to the floor, or becoming enveloped by the atmosphere of the cupola’s apex, participants are offered a novel sensory experience, converting this observatory into a suspended realm from which to look inwards and outwards, to gather and dialogue, immersed in the multiplicity of worlds made manifest in the changing shapes of passing clouds. Wandering along paths of varying levels of complexity, participants can pause to find a rotating selection of books, in an invitation to inhabit shared time and consider alternative constellations of the urban public sphere, speculative architectures, the environmental crisis, and the entangled web of life.

For more than two decades, Saraceno has been imagining and activating a world free from fossil fuels, in collaboration with spiders and their webs, situated forms of knowledge, and with the vibrant superorganism that is the cosmic web, building an artistic practice of unprecedented variety and scale. Informed by the groundbreaking long-term research and curiosity of the international and interdisciplinary Aerocene and Arachnophilia communities, founded by Saraceno, Cloud Cities Barcelona invites participants into a porous cloudscape of tensions in suspension, to engage in collective critical reflections, activate zones of emergence, and reconsider worldwide networks of care.




In the midst of climate emergency, war, global pandemics, racial-ecocidal capitalism, social exclusion, and the proliferation of clouds of pollution and misinformation, Saraceno’s work addresses matters of environmental and social justice and envisions alternative ways of engaging with Earth’s atmosphere and interspecies ecology. Emerging from his long-standing artistic research "Cloud Cities", a proposal for a common imaginary for an ethical re-alliance with the environment, the planet, and the cosmic web beyond anthropocentrism, his cloud-shaped sculptures, reminiscent of the geometric Weaire-Phelan structure of foam and soap bubbles, act as an invitation to engage from diverse bearings, where there is neither up nor down, no inside or outside, and all is floating. As part of this series, Cloud Cities Barcelona challenges the verticality of the observatory’s distant gaze through alternative geometries of togetherness, so as to suspend social distances and collectively consider the multi-scalar threads of relation that weave our shared but threatened world and bind our interdependent fates.

From the artist

When clouds appear like rocks and towers, the Earth’s refreshed with frequent showers.
If spiders break off and remove their webs, the weather will soon be wet.
Stable climates might be granted if souls remain open to webbed encounters.

For millennia, humans have looked to the clouds and the behaviors of plants and animals to predict collective futures, finding messages hidden in their changing shapes and habits. Yet, in the context of the Capitalocene, the knowledge of entire ecosystems is being threatened and clouds are disappearing, replaced by toxic plumes of pollution and digital misinformation. Can an observatory in the 21st century, with its distant gaze, sense within and imagine something other than clouds in the shape of castles in the sky?

Like droplets of water condensing along the strands of a spider’s web, cosmic and terrestrial clouds form: Clouds of neighborhoods off gentrification; Stratocumulus entangled in webs of life; Cirrus threads of connection; Cumulus in extinction; Stratus is stillness in motion; Altostratus unlearn what we have learned; Clouds of spider/webs above Sagrada Família move from arachnophobia to Arachnophilia; Mama clouds to fall asleep; Altocumulus floats in the infinity of breath while Nimbuses are fish swimming in the air; Cloud dreams of fairer weathers…










Today's News

May 18, 2022

The Macklowe Collection tops $922 million at auction

$100 million film studio to rise from rubble of ex-public housing site

Tomás Saraceno's first permanent installation in southern Europe opens in Barcelona

A long-hidden library of exceptional natural history reappears after 70 years

Musea Brugge entrusted with the administration of a prestigious collection

Bill Wyman's collection of Rolling Stones memorabilia & Sticky Fingers Restaurant heads to Julien's Auctions

Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette appointed as Newfields' President & Chief Executive Officer

Wichita Art Museum Board of Trustees names Anne Kraybill as Director/Chief Executive Officer

Howard University acquires major Gordon Parks collection

Colour Rush! An installation by Sabine Marcelis at the Vitra Design Museum

Public Art Fund opens group exhibition along Brooklyn Park's waterfront

Christie's New York presents record-breaking auction of exceptional watches

Galerie Mourlot presents a solo exhibition of new work by Judith Seligson

Impressive results for Moore, Chagall, and Nakashima in back-to-back Freeman's auctions

Comics featuring debuts of Batman, Spiderman, X-Men & Wonder Woman hit the market in single sale

Galleria Continua announces its collaboration with Adel Abdessemed

Sparkling results to celebrate Catherine Southon Auctioneers & Valuers' 10th anniversary

Nobody makes films like Alex Garland. But he might stop making them.

Breathing, dancing art at the Met Museum

Praz-Delavallade Los Angeles opens 'Don't Give Me Flowers'

Debut solo exhibition of Paris based artist, DJ, producer and performer Christelle Oyiri opens in Glasgow

Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim's third solo show at Lawrie Shabibi opens in Dubai

Shirt worn by Sergio Agüero when he secured the title for Manchester City in 2012 to be offered at auction

New Director announced for HM Queen Sonja Art Foundation

Door N Key Lake Worth Locksmith - Great Service For You!

Know the benefits of investing in NFTs

Requirements and tasks for Magento developers. Where to find them.

Most Common Mistakes to Avoid While Purchasing ICICI Bank Share




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

sa gaming free credit
Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful