May 14 - August 7, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 13, 6 - 8 p.m.

This summer, Blaffer Art Museum presents Tomás Saraceno’s first large-scale museum exhibition in the United States. Showcasing twenty installations, sculptures and photographs made since 2003, Tomás Saraceno: Lighter than Air is on view at Blaffer from May 14 through August 7, 2010. A free opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, May 13, from 6 until 8 p.m.

Trained initially as an architect, Saraceno follows in the tradition of visionaries such as R. Buckminster Fuller by looking to scientific principles and advances in technology to develop ideas for future sustainable communities. But instead of utopia on land, Saraceno looks to the sky for his inspiration. His long term project entitled Air-Port-City (2001-present) envisions networks of mile-long geodesic balloons that provide living environments aloft in international air space. Free from geopolitical borders, these habitable cells would combine and separate much like drifting clouds, challenging concepts of nationhood and land ownership.

In Lighter than Air, the laser-printed Liverpool/Flying Garden/Air-Port-City (2008) illustrates Saraceno’s heavenly utopia alongside architectural prototypes of the artist’s aerial habitats. One of these is 32SW/Flying Garden/Air-Port-City (2007), a cluster of inflated spheres anchored to the floor, wall and ceiling of the museum. It contains Spanish moss, a plant that lives solely on water and airborne nutrients, suggesting that the presence of sustainable floating communities is what the future may indeed hold.

Saraceno is internationally recognized for his prototypes that use the interdependencies of systems to ponder ecological questions that go beyond the natural world. The artist contrives environments that anticipate new socio-cultural platforms for experiencing and interacting with our surroundings. “Now there is an even better consciousness of sustainability in our lives on planet Earth,” Saraceno explains. “In this way, my work tries to explore and interpret the present reality, using technological innovations for new social objectives.”

Tomás Saraceno was born in Tucamán, Argentina, in 1973, and currently lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Most recently, he has had solo shows in Berlin, Luxembourg and Copenhagen, as well as an installation in the 2009 Venice Biennale, Making Worlds.

Tomás Saraceno: Lighter than Air was organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and curated by Yasmil Raymond, curator of Dia Art Foundation.

Schedule of Events:

2 p.m. Thursday, May 13
Press Preview
RSVP: 713.743.9528

6 – 8 p.m. Thursday, May 13
Opening Reception

3 p.m. Saturday, May 15
Tomás Saraceno in Conversation with Yasmil Raymond
Freed Auditorium, Glassell School of Art
5101 Montrose Boulevard
*Co-hosted by the MFAH’s Latin American Art Department and Latin Maecenas

6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 30
Contemporary Salon
*Co-presented by the UH Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts

6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 21
Lecture by UH Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Theory Coordinator Michelangelo Sabatino

12 p.m. Wednesday, July 28
Brown Bag Gallery Tour

Further Reading

Yasmil Raymond: "Systems of Approximation" (2010)
Andy Coughlan in Issue magazine: "Saraceno 'floats' idea for 'Lighter than Air' environment" (June 2010)

Multimedia

Tomás Saraceno: Lighter than Air was organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The exhibition was made possible by generous support from John Taft. Additional support was provided by the Harpo Foundation. Tomás Saraceno’s artist residency at the Walker was made possible by the Nimoy Foundation. Artist materials were provided by 3M. The exhibition at Blaffer is sponsored in part by Gail and Louis K. Adler. In kind support was provided by HPI.