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Tomás Saraceno
Pneuma 5.5, 2021

Tomás Saraceno, Pneuma 5.5, 2021, detail

Tomás Saraceno

Collection

Abundant Futures

Hand-blown glass, polyester cord, velvet cord, monofilament, Tillandsia
60 x 60 x 60 cm

Air in Tomás Saraceno’s work channels the interconnections of human and nonhuman beings, living creatures, and non-living matter. His long-term project Aerocene invokes an era free from borders and fossil fuels, one in which humanity collaborates with the atmosphere, taking air both as an element of investigation and as a medium in its own right. Following the logic of the Aerocene, Pneuma 5.5 experiments with hand-blown glass to shape a delicate soap bubble, which contains the Pneuma—denoting breath, the spirit of which, like the wind, is invisible, immaterial, and animate. Part of a more extensive series of sculptures, Pneuma 5.5 also nurtures biotic elements tied together in an assemblage of organic and inorganic matter, including several specimens of Tillandsia, a tropical aerial plant that lives without soil. The Tillandsia has minimal roots, which are transformed into small anchors, and grows suspended in the air, synthesizing nutrients from the atmosphere through the trichomes of its leaves. While plants can metabolize carbon dioxide and are resistant to particulate matter filling the air, Saraceno leaves us to reflect on the question: “How would breathing feel in a post-fossil fuel economy, and what is our response-ability?”

Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, in 1973. Lives in Berlin, Germany.

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Soledad Gutiérrez, "Sensory scores: departing from the work of Tomás Saraceno", in Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary: The Commissions Book,, eds. Eva Ebersberger and Daniela Zyman (2020: Sternberg Press)