Art Basel Miami – Albedo | Hans Ulrich Obrist in conversation with Tomás Saraceno

 

 

 

Aria
Aria
·
ON AIR
ON AIR
·
...

 

 

Art Basel Miami – Albedo | Hans Ulrich Obrist in conversation with Tomás Saraceno

2018, Art Basel, Miami · Curated by Mari Spirito (Conversations Curator)
Aerocene Albedo, 2018
Installation view on the occasion of ‘Audemars Piguet presents Tomás Saraceno for Aerocene’ at Art Basel Miami 2018.
Courtesy Aerocene Foundation. Image by Aerocene Foundation licensed under the open-source Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0.

Aerocene Albedo, 2018
Installation view on the occasion of ‘Audemars Piguet presents Tomás Saraceno for Aerocene’ at Art Basel Miami 2018.
Courtesy Aerocene Foundation. Image by Aerocene Foundation licensed under the open-source Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0.

During Art Basel Miami 2018 Tomás Saraceno presented “Albedo” for Aerocene, in collaboration with Audemars Piguet. Throughout the duration of the art fair, several talks took place, activating the major themes that make up Saraceno’s practice with a special focus on Aerocene.

 

The large-scale temporal open-air pavilion, “Albedo”, was comprised of 40 reflective, out-turned umbrellas of various sizes, creating a hemispheric sundial on the oceanfront. The experimental structure, which is a continuation of the artist’s work with the Aerocene Foundation, harnessed solar energy to lift an  Aerocene Explorer sculpture into the air whilst keeping it suspended.

 

On December 7th of 2018, a conversation was held between Tomás Saraceno and international curator and Serpentine Gallery artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist. The talk created an arch that connected Saraceno’s work to the tangible, “cosmic” connections that drive him in his practice.

The two exchanged a lively and engaging conversation revealing the mutual admiration that has grown since they met, years ago, in Venice; Obrist was taking his first steps as a teacher, and Saraceno his student.

Saraceno then went on to explain the concept behind Albedo,  bringing on stage the everyday version of the umbrellas to demonstrate their utility. In fact, the repurposed umbrellas were meant to be used as cooking stations, where local chefs were invited to use them, facilitating up to two-hundred meals each day throughout the course of the fair.

For Saraceno, the concept of community, appropriation and sharing is as important as the spontaneity on which they can occur. Albedo aimed to further this spirit of collaboration through cooking and eating together, adding to the community projects already upheld by Aerocene and Museo Aerosolar. Participants were welcome to join in the food being cooked or to bring their own food and experiment with the sun cookers/aero reflectors. 

Given that Saraceno was working in a public space, the idea of appropriation, that passersby confronted with the sculptures, could take the idea as if it were their own, is very important to him; “this is how you connect and enlarge the community”, Saraceno explains during the talk.

For the artist, anytime a public intervention takes place, part of the process is to build awareness of the human, non-human and non-living actors that already inhabit the space. By connecting fairgoers and residents of Miami, exploring their relationship with the sun and what it would feel like to breathe in a post fossil-fuels era. 

“How can we really engage in new languages?… and try to become sensitive to each other, to be able to perceive beyond our (own) world.”

Tomás Saraceno

COLLABORATORS

Aerocene Foundation, Art Basel Miami, Audemars Piguet, Hans Ulrich Obrist



 

 

 

Aria
Aria
·
ON AIR
ON AIR
·
...