Wu Tsang installs Of whales, a marine universe inside the Thyssen Museum

Aspects of the exhibition provided inside the basement of the Madrid venue, conceived as a plea in want of our seas.Foto Schauspielhaus Zúrich/Desing Pics Inc/Stock Footage y Roberto Ruiz/Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Madrid. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum well-knownshows an immersive set up inside the basement of its building, of whaleswhich turned the rooms of the artwork gallery right into a marine universe, into an ocean that dialogues with one of the masterpieces of established literature, Moby Dickby Hermann Melville. The piece is by means of the American artist Wu Tsang, who addresses this mirrored image at the destiny of humanity and our planet from a “postcolonial, queer and ecologist”, consistent with his very own explanation.

Through monitors and a clear and forceful sound, which immerses the viewer in the ones exquisite and literary marine universes, Wu Tsang’s piece displays exactly on our float as a species, however also outlines with poetic pix a plea in prefer of our seas, of its most complicated and delightful species, along with whales. Throughout the projection, realistic scenes are combined with seabeds, which in flip are interspersed with different greater abstract sequences wherein there's a mixture of light, coloration and textures till achieving a type of hypnotic reverie.

The director of the Madrid museum, Guillermo Solana, defined that this piece is exhibited in Spain for the first time, after its most efficient at the closing version of the Venice Biennale. Solana himself careworn that it's miles a vision in which as human beings we've an excellent potential to create worlds, however we have to be aware about our limits. Throughout the installation, a kind of surreal marine cosmos is proven in which whales, jellyfish and other summary shapes appear and disappear, immersing the viewer in a form of dream world.

The manner to create the pics of Wu Tsang changed into via a technological device that is typically used to generate fictitious eventualities in video games, as explained via the artist herself, who recognized that this has also helped her to recognise her barriers as a filmmaker.

During the projection of the photos, a 14-channel piece of song is constantly heard within the set up, constituted of horns, saxophone, clarinet and other musical gadgets. The goal become to configure a soundscape that would fill the space and help the viewer to rethink their courting with other aquatic species and also with different kinds.Explained Tsang at some point of the presentation in Madrid.

The director of the museum defined that “of whales refocuses the unique textual content’s profound meditation on knowledge, exoticism, and eroticism via a postcolonial lens. Imagined from the angle of the whale and the motley group of sailors aboard the whaling ship A little, this complicated work locations Melville’s account inside the context of mid-19th century maritime records, the transatlantic birth of modern capitalism, and mass civil unrest. The immensity of the ocean turns into a image of the unknown; the artist’s reflections factor to the presence of indirect views and make the concept that any point of view is singular or linear greater complex”.

Soledad Gutiérrez, curator of the exhibition, explained that the piece is an immersive experience: we do no longer enter to look, however to sense; we plunge into an revel in that invites us to dive 2 thousand meters deep. That darkness that once in a while scares us will become a area of opportunity.

The installation is part of a more in-depth work by way of Wu Tsang on Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dickto which different audiovisual portions are delivered, together with a silent feature movie directed by using the artist, Moby Dick or The Whale, which follows the white whale on its journey through the ocean, and so that it will also be screened at the Thyssen Museum. Ends June eleven.