MODERN THINKER

During my last visit to New York, I lucked out big time with the chance to visit and experience Ernesto Neto's Anthropodino. It totally blew my mind! I highly encourage you to visit one of his installs if you ever have the chance, it's multi-sensory goodness. Researching, sourcing and reading are among my pastimes, so I sat down to learn more about Ernesto Neto and in doing so, I came across another incredible artist which I will be writing about in this posting. His name is Tomas Saraceno and he is a German based Argentinian artist who's work has shown worldwide… for those of you who know me, yes, I'm totally proud of him being from my motherland, mi Argentina querida.

Saraceno's mind is brilliant… I have been reading about him and his work and admiring the incredible architectural art he creates for far too many more hours than I should admit to. He is an architect by training and a completely visionary artist who's work merges art, science and technology, while also addressing many current issues of our times, relating to border disputes, xenophobia and the ecological problems we're facing. He often experiments with innovative and lightweight materials and with the help of physicists and engineers he's been able to bring initially thought to be utopian ideas to fruition.




He works with different mediums including photography, video, sculpture and drawing. I would love to one day watch the film and see more photos of his project in Uyuni, Bolivia - the largest salt flat on the Earth, which during rainy season gets covered by a thin layer of water, creating a mirror effect, reflecting the sky on the earth… The few photos I have seen are magical, powerful and ethereal.

Saraceno is fascinated by the topic of floating cities. In an article I read about him, he explains "his thing with balloons" as a need to elevate himself from the earth and detach himself from it as a double thought. On one hand the Earth isn't what is longed for, but at the same time it is, because only when you view it from a certain distance you get to know it better. He compares this to viewing the Nazca line drawings, which can't be perceived from the earth, but can be from a certain height, in which case the distance actually becomes closeness.

He thinks cities should be like clouds - flexible. Hi work has a very architectural aesthetic and often consists of spheres and clusters of Spheres. In his Flying Green House project, the centre spheres shelter green house plants and the ones around it insulate it, providing a constant temperature. Another project which involves green thinking is the work he did for the Walker Art Center, where real grass is growing from metallic spheres suspended in the air, becoming an ecosystem with the grass in the gallery is watered by sprinklers that are powered by a wind turbine that sits on the patio outside.



Airport City stems from the concept of a floating city in the sky, which is a re-occurring theme in his work, where among other concepts, borders are blurred... "The habitations would move like clouds, eliminating geographical and political boundaries, generating human and political communities in continuous transformation and re-definition. These airport-cities would be freely constituted in compliance with the international laws, challenging the political, social, cultural and military restrictions presently in effect around the world"

Tomas Saraceno's "Galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets of a spider's web" is part of the Making World exhibition at the Venice Art Biennale 09. Here, he explores how the black widow's gossamer filaments can hold heavy weight through the use of geometry.







Tomas quickly became another one of my latest favourites and in researching him I came across a number of great blogs and websites that have a slew of inspirational material, among them where: www.designboom.com, www.core.form-ula.com and www.walkerart.org… the photos came from many sites including the above mentioned, I would love to credit all the photographers in these images, but I'm unable to.