Tomas Saraceno at The Shed

This web is a tiny part of Tomas Saraceno’s current show at The Shed in Hudson Yards, but like the rest of the exhibition, it elicits wonder at the natural world, prompting greater respect for the web of interspecies relationships around us.  Housed behind glass and spot lit from below, webs created by various species of spiders in Saraceno’s Berlin studio demonstrate the arthropods’ ability to communicate and understand the world around them through motion perceived via webs.  Elsewhere in the show, visitors are invited to physically enter a version of a web in the immersive installation ‘Free the Air:  How to hear the universe in a spider/web’ by settling on a web of wire mesh netting to listen to a soundtrack that translates spider movements into sound.  (On view at The Shed through April 17th).

Tomas Saraceno, installation view (detail) of ‘Webs of At-tent(s)ion,’ spider frames, spider silk, carbon fibers, lights, 2020.

 

Published by

Merrily Kerr

Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education. For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine. Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)