ON AIR by Tomas Saraceno: 'Loosing one’s self in a cosmic jam session and huge spider web'

Tomás Saraceno ON AIR, solo exhibition at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2018, curated by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel.Courtesy the artist; Andersen’s, Copenhagen; Esther Schipper, Berlin; Pinksummer Contemporary Art, Genoa; Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. ©Photography Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2018.

I have to be honest, one of my most anticipated, certain to be, highlights during FIAC Art Fair week is the institutional shows. From the solo exhibitions on the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat & Egon Schiele at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, to Grayson Perry’s first major solo exhibition in Paris at Monnaie de Paris to Picasso’s ‘Blue & Rose’ exhibition at Musée d’Orsay there were a lot to choose from! In the end, I decided to focus on one of my favourite site-specifically challenging events and the largest centre for contemporary artistic creation in all of Europe; Palais de Tokyo.

The exhibition ON AIR: Carte Blanche to Tomás Saraceno has just opened its doors to the public. Saraceno known for his large-scale, interactive installations and floating sculptures has taken over the entirety of the 13,000 m² of Palais de Tokyo’s exhibition space for the Fourth Edition of its Cartes Blanches which started with Philippe Parreno in 2013.

Exploring the boundaries between art, science and architecture, this Carte Blanche is Saraceno’s largest project to date, bringing a selection of his major works together with ambitious new productions that transformed Palais de Tokyo into a unique sensory experience. An unnerving yet inquisitive feeling fills me while I am walking through the almost pitch-black rooms, which immediately changes my usual pace. Immersed in the large-scale spider webs where one is faced directly with the spiders themselves, sounds and resonances of the universe, I slowly and carefully explore the massive exhibition space. The human and non-human, visible and invisible are contested as the myriad voices of a living orchestra. Concerned with taking over human perception by exploring and finding inspiration in that of other beings, Saraceno reveals a more-than-human world beyond our perspectives, where a polyphony of sounds, movements and vibrations of species and phenomena coexist, from the microscopic to the cosmic. I am immediately absorbed and consumed in the multi-sensory installations that all are in dialogue with each other. Gathering numerous collaborators and collaborations, bringing together scientific institutions, research groups, activists, local communities, visitors, musicians, philosophers, non-human, and celestial phenomena, all of whom contributed to the evolution of the artist’s exhibition ON AIR is by far my favourite experiential contemporary art exhibition I have been to this year.

Curated by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, during each occurrence of the exhibition on October 26th, November 23rd and December 14th, there will be symposiums held that bring together researchers, activists and artists within the exhibition spaces. The exhibition can be seen until 6th of January 2019 every day except Tuesdays, from noon until midnight.

More info: palaisdetokyo.com/carte-blanche-tomas-saraceno