London virtual aquarium free#
Philip Henry Gosse (1810–88), naturalist, illustrator and devout follower of the free church of the evangelical Christian group the Plymouth Brethren, is considered the founder of what quickly turned into an aquarium craze in Victorian Britain. It was between the axes framing the work of Janssens, Cohen, and Van Balen – aesthetic design, scientific research and ethics – that the modern aquarium was born in the 19th century. In his book Art and Fear (2006), Paul Virilio described such artistic methods as the ‘art of fear’ and a ‘chimerical explosion’ counter to what is supposedly value-neutral modification and breeding. At the very least, their work touches upon ethical and religious issues. While Janssens pacifies these artificial underwater worlds and transposes them into a distanced, minimalist aesthetic, Cohen and Van Balen utilize the present-day spirit of ‘doability’ – in this case, the pervasive experimentation in life and design that doesn’t stop at living beings. Flitting around inside the tanks were albino goldfishes without reproductive organs that were designed for the artist by a Japanese scientist. Also featuring aquariums, this show included living creatures. Sterile, 2014 (courtesy: the artists & Schering Stiftung)Īt the same time as Janssens’s exhibition, the installation assemble | standard | minimal by the London-based artist duo Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen was on view at the Schering Stiftung in the same city.
In her installations, the British artist investigates visual perception and spatial experience and often makes use of the component parts of aquariums: differentiating the individual parts to reveal the elements of its construction, for instance, or incorporating liquids in different physical states (splatters, drops) as she did for the Ausstellungshalle Zeitgenössische Kunst Münster in 2011. These objects are by Ann Veronica Janssens. Placed on two pedestals were two small aquariums filled with clear liquid ( Cocktail Sculpture, 2008 Untitled (orange), 2010). Magic Mirror (Blue), 2012) leaning against the walls of the exhibition space. Nonetheless, a kinship exists between the aquarium and the artificium of art, whose depths (to stick with the metaphor) will be fathomed here.Īt Galerie Esther Schipper in Berlin this March, one found large-scale tinted panes of glass (e.g. Among them is that tank itself: the aquarium.Īren’t aquariums the kind of basement hobby for men grown bored of their model railroad sets? Aquariums don’t exactly possess the subversive freshness of eco art or the emancipatory potential of socially engaged art. While the arbitrariness of many of the objects floating in the ‘art pool’ can’t be denied, the appearance of certain others in it seems inevitable. Ever since Marcel Duchamp’s readymade and the ensuing fluidity in the understanding of what art is and can be, there is little that can’t be stirred up if one pokes around for long enough. Antoine Catala Distant Feel, 2015, installation view, Surround Audience, New Museum Triennial, New York, 2015 (courtesy: the artist & 47 Canal, New York)Ĭontemporary art can seem like a collecting tank.
0 kommentar(er)
