Creating connections which are not seen otherwise. Remembering life and giving insights into the past. Try out new forms of living together. Finding new relationships between time, space and form. The artists selected below do all this with nets. From who we can learn to combine unconnected facts, to give space to reason and feelings, and to experiment with new possibilities of connection.

MARK LOMBARDI: VISUALIZATION OF RELATIONSHIPS

In a seemingly transparent world, it is nevertheless important to make invisible relationships visible. That is why the American artist Mark Lombardi (d. 2000) devoted himself to political intrigues at the highest levels. His knowledge did not come from files of relevant authorities. On the contrary: everything he visualized in his large-format drawings is available to everyone – in books, news, newspapers and on the Internet. So what makes his work so extraordinary? By putting generally available fragments of information into context, Lombardi makes us aware of the abuse of power. In his large-scale work “BCCI-ICIC & FAB, 1972-91 (4th Version),” he depicted the 1991 financial scandal involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which was involved in arms trafficking, drug smuggling, and money laundering. In the artwork, the connections between finance and international terrorism become a pattern of arcs and lines. Lombardi himself called his drawings “narrative structures” because they were his means of expression to organize all the information into a meaningful whole for himself, as if for a story. He quickly found out how important archives are, because they force the user to sort the information according to criteria. This resulted in works that have the graphic effect of a painting, but follow the methodological rules of a historical narrative, even in a scientific sense. Lombardi did not tie up the loose ends, did not interpret. He was concerned with observing without evaluating. By making the contingencies, ambiguities, and fractures visible, he not only opened the eyes of the viewers by merely pointing out connections, but also opened up paths for their own meaningful interpretations, which make it possible to shape the future accordingly.

CHIHARU SHIOTA: HOLDING ON TO MEMORIES

The Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is inspired by places and things and their inherent stories. Typical of her spatial installations are black, red or white woolen threads. Black symbolizes the night sky and the cosmos, red visualizes human relationships and human life, while white – the color of mourning in Japan – stands for purity. Her installations incorporate reflections on historical, contemporary, and social connotations of the elements used, which she ultimately weaves into an aesthetic total artwork. The work “Beyond Time” is also about memory, about the absent. Inspired by the empty space of an 18th century chapel in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where (memorial) services, baptisms and weddings once took place, the artist took the past and wove it into white threads. The work is meant to remind the viewer of the life that once filled the chapel and provides a glimpse into the past. The piano, which also holds a central place in “Beyond Time,” is a recurring motif in Shiota’s work that has its origins in her childhood in Japan. Her neighbor’s house burned down and only the half-destroyed piano remained. Having become functionless, it still carried the memories of sound for Shiota. The outline of the piano in the installation refers to the music that was once played in the chapel. Stretching out from the silent piano are white woolen threads that hold within them copies of the memorial service speeches, concert programs, and scores. It is the memory of the sound of the defunct organ, the communion at prayer, and the sense of loss that informs this installation.

TOMÁS SARACENO: TESTING SUSTAINABLE COEXISTENCE IN THE FUTURE

At the borders of art and science, Tomás Saraceno investigates different spider webs and uses the results for his new, hybrid form of communication. For the spin-ne, its web is a sensory organ with which it feels its world. This material extension of its own senses makes especially the web-building technique interesting for him. For Saraceno, however, nets also stand for human social behavior and social connectedness. He constantly examines the current state of collective life and tests new forms of living together. In doing so, he takes special account of findings from biology, chemistry, aeronautics, physics and material science. He also collaborated with architects, engineers and biologists for the 2,500-square-foot, three-layer (air-filled giant PVC balls hold the layers apart) net structure “In Orbit.” The installation represents a large network of communication. The people moving in the web trigger vibrations, which the others in it perceive. Like spiders, the people in it sense their environment and a new togetherness emerges. “In Orbit”, with its inflatable biospheres floating in the air, is another speculative model for Saraceno’s reflections on alternative, sustainable and utopian ways of living.

JORINDE VOIGT: ATTEMPT TO SYSTEMATIZE A COMPLEX WORLD

Jorinde Voigt examines different events – such as the flight of an eagle or the kiss of two people – with regard to their relation to time, space, speed and form. She translates the frequencies of the events into lines, numbers, brackets and arrows, which she arranges in the large-format drawings according to a certain systematic. The events serve as nodes. These nodes are connected to each other by streamlined straight lines. Corresponding to the events, the straight lines contain individual information such as speed, spatial distance, temporal sequence and duration. In this way, a network of simultaneously existing actions and subjects is created, which is transferred into an aesthetic system of order. The subjects do not appear in the works, only the action is frozen in time in the drawings and thus remains visible. In “2 küssen sich” the duration of the kiss and the time interval to the next kiss is described. The actions are partly present as infinite, partly finite actions. By means of the Fibonacci sequence, it visualizes the infinite sequence of the kiss. The first kiss lasts one minute with a one-minute pause, the next kiss lasts two minutes followed by a three-minute pause, and so on. From the duration of the kiss we get the number of the following couples. We thus see the number sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and so on. Zero and one are given, each further number results from the sum of the two preceding numbers. In finite action patterns, the number sequences are counted against each other. If the first kiss lasts 10 minutes with a one-minute pause and the second kiss lasts nine minutes with a two-minute pause, and so on, the result is a number series of 10-1, 09-02, and so on. The kiss duration also determines the couple number here. Driven by great curiosity, Voigt wants to understand a subject and make it visible. To do this, she analyzes individual frequencies and transfers them into her own written language.