New York Exhibition Displays Spiderwebs

Varieties

February 23rd, 9:16am

New York, London - Asharq Al-Awsat

Spider webs as artistic objects in an exhibition by Tomas Saraceno from 2019 at the Venice Biennale, Italy. (dpa)

Many fear spiders. Yet, it’s hard to deny that their woven homes are somehow an artwork that could be deadly for other insects! Building on the terrible beauty of spiderwebs, Berlin-based Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno filled New York’s The Shed gallery with artificial spiderwebs. The $404-million-construction, which looks less like a shed and more like a giant steel cushion, first opened in 2019 and has become a high-profile new platform for art in the 21st century, said the German news agency. The versatile space is part of the controversial new Hudson Yards neighborhood, a massive complex overlooking the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. It's also the home to many luxury apartments and high-end shops for New York's ultrarich. Some of Saraceno's webs that fill the space as part of the exhibition, which opened on Feb. 11, even glow in the dark and can be seen lit up behind glass. Others give visitors the feeling of what it's like to be trapped in a web, as they enter an artificial web with a diameter of around 30 meters. There they experience a short performance involving darkness, sounds and vibrations. The show at the art gallery is scheduled to run until April 17.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3491641/new-york-exhibition-displays-spiderwebs