On July 16, 1945, in the White Sands of New Mexico, the first atomic bomb was detonated. The consequence of this explosion was that radioactive particles were transmitted across the globe through the wind, marking the beginning of the "Anthropocene".
70 years later, on November 8, 2015, in the same place, another incident occurred. For the first time in human history, using only the heat energy of the sun, it flew into the sky without burning a drop of oil.
When the sun rises over the horizon, we also rise quietly, slowly, without exploding. We feel as if gravity has been reversed, and instead of being pulled to the ground by gravity, we are rising towards the universe.
Neil Armstrong said during his moonwalk that " it is a small step for one man, but a giant leap for all mankind". Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is: Where should we take our steps?
– Thomas Saraceno
Algorithmic Rhythm, 2023
Thomas Saraceno. Courtesy of the artist, Tanya Bonada Gallery, New York/Los Angeles, and Schneider Gallery, Neugerhem, Berlin.
"Symbiosis", installation view of Red Brick Art Museum, 2024
In 1990, Voyager 1 looked back at the Earth from 6.4 billion kilometers away and took the first photograph of the Earth from outer space. After five mass extinctions, will the sixth mass extinction be caused by the new ice age, or the greed and lust of the Anthropocene......
Spiders have been on Earth for 380 million years, escaping the doom of extinction, while humans have only existed on Earth for 200,000 years. We should learn to humbly pay homage to spiders.
Living at the Bottom of the Sea of Air, 2019
On March 21st, Thomas Saraceno's largest solo exhibition in Asia, Complementarities, opened at the Red Brick Art Museum, in a time of ecological turmoil, as the artist puts it, "The situation is urgent, and this exhibition is an urgent invitation to the Chinese audience to adapt to a symbiotic, poetic future through a trembling language in which all living and non-living things are mutually beneficial." ”
《AeroK 》,2023
Thomas Saraceno. Courtesy of the artist and Aerocene, Tanya Bonada Gallery, New York/Los Angeles, and Schneider Gallery, Neugerhem, Berlin.
"Symbiosis", installation view of Red Brick Art Museum, 2024
The exhibition asks the question of how we can practice and maintain the concept of collective care and hope with the community as the main body, resonate at the same frequency, and jointly outline the picture of the future, and how we can think about how to collaborate with all living beings (both living and non-living things) in this "planet full of holes", where everything is interconnected. Through a series of interactive installations, videos, sculptures, and game experiences, the exhibition re-focuses on art from an ecological perspective, and reflects on and reconstructs the relationship between humans and non-humans, living and non-living things in an intellectual context that is different from the mainstream framework of anthropocentrism. From spiders to humans, gravitational waves to dust particles, from the Earth to the atmosphere, Saraceno works with Indigenous communities, researchers, and institutions around the world to rethink the intellectual thread of the Capital Era, aiming to find a more equitable balance between humans, technology, and biodiversity for eco-social justice.
Jonas Stampe, a senior researcher at the Red Brick Art Museum, believes that "when we are in the amazing spider works of Salaceno, we should see his philosophical proposition, that is, our world should not be dualistic, but more to see the inclusion and complementarity of all things in the world." ”
"The Web of Attention", 2024, "Symbiosis" Red Brick Art Museum
特别鸣谢 Arachnophilia 社区。
Other spider/web works include a series of countless spider webs found in and around the Red Brick Art Museum, our ongoing collaboration with Beijing Spider.
The spider that inhabits the exhibition hall of the Red Brick Art Museum writes an open letter to the audience on the rights of invertebrates, granting us a certificate of coexistence on the premise that their rights are respected and recognized – that minorities learn to live with us, the majority of lives.
In a dark space, How Did the Universe Sink into a Cobweb?, we instantly plunge into the cosmic web of spiders, where otherwise overlooked endless connections become tangible. Each node in Algorithms and Rhythm points to different echo frequencies of microscopic and macroscopic phenomena, and in this interconnected, near-global network, we may be dancing with spiders at the same frequency?
How does the universe sink into cobwebs?, 2022
Thomas Saraceno. Courtesy of the artist and Arachnophilia, Tanya Bonada Gallery, New York/Los Angeles, and Schneider Gallery, Neugergem, Berlin.
"Symbiosis", installation view of Red Brick Art Museum, 2024
The largest exhibition hall of the Red Brick Art Museum has been transformed into a 6,800-square-meter giant stringed instrument, and the audience follows the guidance of the artist Thomas Saraceno, turning into a spider shuttling through the spider web, watching, touching, listening, plucking the "strings", and thousands of strings resonate with the trembling vocal music, as if falling into a spectacular cosmic symphony scene.
In Particulate Matter, the earth and cosmic dust particles are brought to life by a beam of intense light, including cosmic dust, man-made dust, black carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels, and PM 2.5 particles. This pillar of light shimmers with crystalline specks, like millions of suspended galaxies, stirred by the viewer's movements and breathing. This pillar of light, formed by the entanglement of breath and spirit, constructs the question: Who has the right to breathe?
Particulate Matter (Quality), 2021
The most important deity in Andean culture, the "Pachamama", is the mother of the earth, which means time and space, governs planting, harvesting, and fertility, represents the mountains, causes earthquakes, and provides survival resources and shelter for humans. In January 2020, in the province of Jujuy, the air-solar sculpture "Aerocene Pacha" lifted into the air using only the sun and air, completely freeing itself from dependence on fossil fuels, batteries, lithium, helium and hydrogen, becoming the most sustainable flight in human history. It lifted off with the message "Water and life are more valuable than lithium" written by the indigenous communities of Salinas Grandes and the Guayata York Lagoon.
《与Pacha一起,飞入Aerocene》,2017—2023
Digital Film, 76' 25''
Directed by Maximiliano Reiner and Thomas Saraceno
Screenwriters: Claudia Abof, Tomás Saraceno, Yossi Haverio
Aerocene Foundation. Courtesy of the indigenous communities of Aercene, Slinas Grandes and Guayata York Lagoon.
As part of the exhibition, visitors can enter and paint on the "Sea of Air", contributing to the growing "cloud" knowledge base of the cloudcities website, which is activated by an interactive tool based on the "Ecology of Illusions". Created especially for the communities of Salinas Grandes and Guayatayoc Lagoons in Argentina, this intergenerational artwork can be painted with pen and paper on site, and will be sent to Argentina after the exhibition as a way of solidarity with the indigenous peoples.
Aerocene Gallery, "Symbiosis", installation view of Red Brick Art Museum, 2024
"We must listen to the voices from the margins of the world and understand their willingness to defend waters, salt pans and shared resources to drive the eco-social energy transition!" Salaceno reminds us. Since colonization began more than 500 years ago, the Global North has been developing at the expense of the Global South, and the current energy transition is having an unequal impact on the world.
Artist Thomas Saraceno (first from left) at the scene of "Symbiosis", Red Brick Art Museum, 2024
Qiu Zhijie, vice president and professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, described Saraceno's artistic practice as follows: "Pure, powerful, wonderful, profound, and at the same time a clear installation art, which hides the inherent political passion and humane care of contemporary art under such a beautiful appearance, and cleanses people of many prejudices about contemporary art." ”
Thomas Saraceno (first from right), Yan Shijie (second from left), Qiu Zhijie (first from left)
Installation view of "Symbiosis" Red Brick Art Museum, 2024
"Saraceno's artistic practice embodies interconnectedness between disciplines and ecosystems, and he constantly shifts his role, from entering the field of fieldwork in Indigenous communities to reinforcing the spirit of Do-It-Together to design and manufacture fossil-free solar-powered sculptures. Poets and social activists, through their collective action, have launched an ethical commitment to living things, to the atmosphere and to the planet itself – Aerocene, an era that deviates from anthropocentrism, an era with environmental protection at its core, for the benefit of the planet's 8 billion humans and trillions of other creatures that inhabit it. Yan Shijie, the curator of the exhibition, said.
"All things are cultivated and do not harm each other, the Tao is parallel but not contradictory, the small virtue flows, the great virtue is dunified, the reason why this heaven and earth are great" ("The Book of Rites: The Mean"), the exhibition "Symbiosis" reveals to us an ideal picture of harmonious coexistence between man and nature and between different species, and has political and ecological significance.
(Article from 99 Art)
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