This reminded me of how nourishing contemporary art can be.
The exhibition is organised into four sections: "How Have Humans through the Ages Viewed the Universe?" (including mandalas a-plenty, books and instruments of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and other art including Laurent Grasso's intriguing "Studies into the Past"), "The Universe as Space-Time", "A New View of Life - Do Aliens Exist?" and "Space Travel and the Future of Humanity", and the "Space-Time" section, given over to contemporary work, was really something - I wonder if the subject (what we used to call 'outer space') works particularly well with the conceptual apparatus of contemporary art?
Anyhow, there is Andreas Gursky's "Kamiokande" (2007), which I've seen before and I don't think impressed me that much then but certainly did this time round (underground neutrino observatory - as it happens, in Japan), Bjorn Dahlem's "Black Hole (M-Spheres)" (2016), a sculptural reinterpretation of the Milky Way, Trevor Paglen's breathtaking photos, especially "They Watch the Moon" (2010) and "Keyhole 12-3 (Improved Crystal): Optical Reconnaisance Satellite near Scorpio (USA 129)" (2007), Jia Aili's "Hermit from the Planet Dust" (2015-16) which invokes a whole lot of art movements but none so much as simply 'sci fi', and best of all, Conrad Shawcross's "Timepiece" (2013), which was utterly hypnotic and achieved its aim of referencing "a sublime form of astronomical time, as experienced in sundials and interactions with the Sun" - a suspended set of metal arms, three bulbs, one in constant rotation (orbit) and a single metal spike on the ground, shadows thrown through the movement.
And then at the very end, in the "Space Travel" closer, a participatory video and music installation by a collective called teamLab - "Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as Well, Blossoming on Collision - Light in Space". A dark room in which the neon images of crows, flowers and other visuals stream across the four walls and the floor of the room to music, taking their central point from the centre of where the viewers of the work are gathered in the room itself. Also sublime and immersive as the lights swooped round and about and up and down were all swirled together.
It also occurs to me that maybe I was primed a bit by having gone to the 52nd floor city view observatory (which had created a very meditative mood as the night lights of Tokyo glittered below in panorama in the darkened quiet of the circular passage beside the windows) and then the open air sky deck above it immediately before seeing the exhibition.
The exhibition is organised into four sections: "How Have Humans through the Ages Viewed the Universe?" (including mandalas a-plenty, books and instruments of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and other art including Laurent Grasso's intriguing "Studies into the Past"), "The Universe as Space-Time", "A New View of Life - Do Aliens Exist?" and "Space Travel and the Future of Humanity", and the "Space-Time" section, given over to contemporary work, was really something - I wonder if the subject (what we used to call 'outer space') works particularly well with the conceptual apparatus of contemporary art?
Anyhow, there is Andreas Gursky's "Kamiokande" (2007), which I've seen before and I don't think impressed me that much then but certainly did this time round (underground neutrino observatory - as it happens, in Japan), Bjorn Dahlem's "Black Hole (M-Spheres)" (2016), a sculptural reinterpretation of the Milky Way, Trevor Paglen's breathtaking photos, especially "They Watch the Moon" (2010) and "Keyhole 12-3 (Improved Crystal): Optical Reconnaisance Satellite near Scorpio (USA 129)" (2007), Jia Aili's "Hermit from the Planet Dust" (2015-16) which invokes a whole lot of art movements but none so much as simply 'sci fi', and best of all, Conrad Shawcross's "Timepiece" (2013), which was utterly hypnotic and achieved its aim of referencing "a sublime form of astronomical time, as experienced in sundials and interactions with the Sun" - a suspended set of metal arms, three bulbs, one in constant rotation (orbit) and a single metal spike on the ground, shadows thrown through the movement.
And then at the very end, in the "Space Travel" closer, a participatory video and music installation by a collective called teamLab - "Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as Well, Blossoming on Collision - Light in Space". A dark room in which the neon images of crows, flowers and other visuals stream across the four walls and the floor of the room to music, taking their central point from the centre of where the viewers of the work are gathered in the room itself. Also sublime and immersive as the lights swooped round and about and up and down were all swirled together.
It also occurs to me that maybe I was primed a bit by having gone to the 52nd floor city view observatory (which had created a very meditative mood as the night lights of Tokyo glittered below in panorama in the darkened quiet of the circular passage beside the windows) and then the open air sky deck above it immediately before seeing the exhibition.
