About the work
Tomás Saraceno’s cloud sculptures and installations stem from his long-standing artistic inquiry — ‘Cloud Cities’ — a proposal for a common imaginary for an ethical realliance with the environment, the planet and the cosmic web of life beyond anthropocentrism. The geometry of these modular compositions is based on the Weaire-Phelan model, which replicates the inner structure of soap bubbles as they combine and create geometric boundaries. Silent Autumn also considers the way that subtle relationships are encoded in the language of pigments. The ochres, golds, browns and reds correspond with the cyclical process of composition and decomposition common to the flora of all ecologies. The autumnal tones of the sculpture’s panels recall leaves which fall and accumulate on the ground as winter approaches.
Studio Tomás Saraceno occupies the factory building on the former site of photographic film and dye manufacturer Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrication (AGFA). In its years developing dyes, AGFA attempted to faithfully reproduce pigments of nature, such as malachitgrün (malachite green), which it invented in 1878 and named after the mineral that bore a similarly intense hue. In this way, nature has been woven into the processes of patenting and commodification of colour, with the product titles of commercial synthetic dyes often derived from the names of the flowering plants they imitate. However, the land remains severely polluted to this day as a result of the industrial activities of AGFA, to the extent that food cannot be grown there as it would not be safe for consumption.
AGFA’s interconnection with nature is an example of extractivism, a wilful borrowing from the natural world while leaving in return a legacy of destruction. Silent Autumn represents the aliveness of matter and the constant flow of becoming which builds our shared world. Re-figuring flows of atmospheric, temporal and energetic relations, the artwork transforms rhythms of extinction marked by systemic addiction, and instead builds toward a resilient future.
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About the artist
Informed by the worlds of art, architecture, and the natural sciences, Tomás Saraceno’s (b. 1973, San Miguel de Tucumán) floating sculptures, community projects and interactive installations propose new sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment. Building on the progressive theories of visionary architectures like Buckminster Fuller, Gyula Kosice and Yona Friedman, Saraceno’s work invites viewers to conceptualize innovative ways of living and interacting with one another and with their surroundings.
Saraceno’s ongoing ‘Air-Port-City / Cloud City’ project explores the possibility of a future airborne existence as a utopia of flying metropolises made up of habitable, cell-like platforms recombine as freely as clouds. These projects grew into the international, interdisciplinary artistic community Aerocene, which seeks to create an environment free from fossil fuels and has been a pioneer in full-solar manned flight. His profound interest in spiders and their webs led to the formation of the Arachnophilia team at Studio Tomás Saraceno, and the creation of arachnophilia.net.
For more information, please visit the gallery website: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
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