Tomás Saraceno
Informed by the worlds of art, architecture, natural sciences and engineering, Tomas Saraceno’s floating sculptures, community projects and interactive installations propose new, sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment. For more than two decades he has explored the possibility of a future airborne existence as part of his ongoing Air-Port-City / Cloud City project – a utopia of flying metropolises made up of habitable, cell-like platforms that migrate and recombine as freely as clouds themselves. Building on the progressive proposals and theories put forth by R. Buckminster Fuller, Gyula Kosice, Yona Friedman and other visionary architects before him, Saraceno develops engaging proposals and models that invite viewers to conceptualize innovative ways of living and interacting with one another, and with their surroundings at large.
These projects grew into the international, interdisciplinary artistic community Aerocene, which seeks to create an environment free from borders, free from fossil fuels. As part of this community in 2015, Saraceno achieved the world record for the first and longest certified fully-solar manned flight. His profound interest in spiders and their webs led to the formation of the Arachnophilia team at Studio Tomás Saraceno, engendering the creation of Arachnophilia.net and the Arachnomancy App. Through these platforms Saraceno invites people from around the globe to weave the web of interspecies understanding and take part in the challenge of Mapping Against Extinction. In the past decade he has collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, the Nanyang Technological University, the Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum London. With an emphasis on collaborative interaction he also became the first person to scan, reconstruct and reimagine spiders’ weaved spatial habitats, and possesses the only three-dimensional spider web collection in existence.
Born in 1973 in Tucuman, Argentina, Saraceno currently lives and works in Berlin. He studied architecture at Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires in Argentina from 1992 to 1999 and received postgraduate degrees from Escuela Superior de bellas Ares de la Nación Ernesto de la Carcova, Buenos Aires (2000) and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule-Frankfurt am Main (2003). In 2009, he attended the International Space Studies Program at NASA Center Ames in Silicon Valley, CA, and was awarded the presitgious Calder Prize later that year.
Among his many exhibitions since the late 1990s, Saraceno’s important solo presentations include ARIA, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (2020), ON AIR, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2019), Tomás Saraceno: Aerographies The Utopian Practitioner and Visionary, Fosun Foundation Shanghai, Shanghai, China (2019), Tomás Saraceno: How to Entangle the Universe in a Spider Web, Museo de Arte Moderno Buenos Aires, Argentina (2017), Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany (2017) Stillness in Motion — Cloud Cities, curated by Joseph Becker, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (2016), Cosmic Jive, Tomas Saraceno: The Spider Sessions, curated by Luca Cerizza at the Villa Croce in Genoa, Italy (2014), Tomás Saraceno, HfG Karlsruhe in Karlsruhe, Germany (2014), In orbit, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K21 in Düsseldorf (2013), On Space time foam, Hangar Bicocca in Milan (2012-13), Tomas Saraceno on the Roof: Cloud City, a site-specific installation commissioned for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012), Cloud Specific, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Louis (2011-12), Cloud Cities, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2011-12), 14 billion, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2010), traveled to BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2011), Lighter than Air, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, traveled to Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, Texas (2009-10).
Saraceno also presented two major installations at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019 as part of the group exhibition, May You Live In Interesting Times, curated by Ralph Rugoff. In 2009, he was included in the 53rd Venice Biennale as part of the group exhibition, Fari Mondi//Making Worlds, curated by Daniel Birnbaum.
His work is presently represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Miami Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Canada, among others.
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Tomás Saraceno: Moving Atmospheres
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow September 11, 2020 - March 14, 2021 -
Tomás Saraceno: Event Horizon
Cisternerne, Copenhagen June 2, 2020 - November 30, 2021 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: ARIA
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy June 1 - November 1, 2020 -
Songs in the Dark
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York January 11 - February 20, 2020 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA May 11 - November 24, 2019 -
Tomás Saraceno
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles January 12 - March 2, 2019 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: ON AIR
PALAIS DE TOKYO, PARIS October 15, 2018 - January 6, 2019 -
Tomás Saraceno: Solar Rhythms
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York April 14 - June 9, 2018 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: AEROGRAPHIES THE UTOPIAN PRACTITIONER AND VISIONARY
FOSUN FOUNDATION, SHANGHAI March 25 - June 3, 2018 -
Tomás Saraceno: Cloud Cities: du sol au soleil
Palace of Versailles, France October 21, 2017 - January 7, 2018 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: ENTANGLED ORBITS
BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART October 1, 2017 - July 8, 2018 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: OUR INTERPLANETARY BODIES
ASIA CULTURE CENTER, GWANGIU, KOREA July 15, 2017 - March 25, 2018 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: STILLNESS IN MOTION - CLOUD CITIES
SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART December 17, 2016 - May 21, 2017 -
Between the Lines
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York January 9 - February 8, 2014 -
TOMÁS SARACENO: IN ORBIT
KUNSTSAMMLUNG NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN, K21 STÄNDEHAUS, DÜSSELDORF June 22, 2013 - July 1, 2022 -
TOMAS SARACENO: CLOUD CITY
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK May 15 - November 4, 2012 -
TOMAS SARACENO: CLOUD CITIES
HAMBURGER BAHNHOF - MUSEUM FÜR GEGENWART, BERLIN September 15, 2011 - February 19, 2012 -
TOMAS SARACENO: CLOUD SPECIFIC
KEMPER ART MUSEUM, ST. LOUIS, MO September 9, 2011 - January 9, 2012 -
Tomás Saraceno: Clouds Cities Connectome
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York November 4 - December 18, 2010 -
TOMAS SARACENO: LIGHTER THAN AIR
WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS, MN May 14 - August 30, 2009 -
Tomás Saraceno: Galaxies Forming Along Filaments, Like Droplets Along the Strands of a Spider’s Web
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York March 22 - April 19, 2008 -
Tomás Saraceno: AIR-PORT-CITY
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York July 6 - August 4, 2006
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AEROCENE Movements for the Air Munich Landing
2020 Softcover, 232 pages
Publisher: Aerocene Foundation, Berlin Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Cloud Cities
Marion Ackermann, Daniel Birnbaum, Udo Kittelmann and Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2011 Hardcover, pages
Publisher: Distanz, Germany Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: 14 Billions (Working Title)
Sara Arrhenius; Helena Granström; Nikolaus Hirsch; Jeffrey Kastner; Hans-Ulrich Obrist, 2011 Hardcover, 246 pages pages
Publisher: Skira
ISBN: 885720857
Dimensions: 21 x 29.7 cm Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific
Inés Katzenstein, Tomás Saraceno, and Denis Weaire, 2014 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Cosmic Jive: The Spider Sessions
Ilaria Bonacossa, Luca Cerizza, William Eberhard, David Toop, Gianni Garrera, Federico Rahola, Federico Nicolao, Joseph Grima, 2014 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Becoming Aerosolar
Agnes Husslein-Arco, Nigel Clark, Mario Codognato, Sasha Engelmann, Derek McCormack, Pablo Suarez, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Etienne Turpin, 2015 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: 163,000 Light Years
Tomás Saraceno, Nina Zambrano, Gonzalo Ortega, Dejan Lukić, 2016 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Arachnid Orchestra – Jam Sessions
Bani Haykal, Joyce Beetuan Koh, Brian O'Reilly, Brian Massumi, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, David Rothenberg, Studio Tomás Saraceno, Etienne Turpin, Evan Ziporyn., 2018 hardcover, 121 pages pages
Publisher: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
Dimensions: 14,8 x 21 cm Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Flying Plaza
Work Journal 2012 - 2016 Jonas Zilius, Tina Veihelmann, Studio Tomás Saraceno, Bachtijar Ashtari, Theo Deutinger, 2017 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Aerosolar Journeys
Heather Davis, Philip Ursprung, Rene Zechlin, Sabine Schaschl, Tomás Saraceno, 2017 softback, 152 pages pages
Publisher: Walther Koenig, Cologne
Dimensions: 27 cm x 20 cm Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Our Interplanetary Bodies
Sung Won Kim, Norman M. Klien, Hyungmin Pai, Nicholas Shapiro, David Toop, 2018 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Aerographies
Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Gonzalo Ortega, Philip Ursprung, 2018 Hardcover, pages
Publisher: China Science Literature Publishing House Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Aria
2020 Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: How to Entangle the Universe in a Spider Web
Philip Ball, Félix Bruzzone, José Emilio Burucúa, Florencia Fernández Campón, Mauricio Corbalán, Carlos Gamerro, Alejandro Gangui, Diego Golombek, Laura Isola, Alex Jordan, Caroline A. Jones, Mylène Ferrand Lointier, Matthew Lutz, Derek McCormack, Victori, 2018 Read more -
Magazine Palais #28
ON AIR: Carte Blanche à Tomás Saraceno Benjamin H. Bratton, Vinciane Despret, Anselm Franke, Stavros Katsanevas, Brandon LaBelle, Bruno Latour, Megan Prelinger, João Ribas, Tomás Saraceno, Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, Mark Wigley, Estelle Zhong Mengual, 2018 soft cover, 192 pages pages
Publisher: Palais de Tokyo,
Dimensions: 22,5 x 28,5 cm Read more -
Tomás Saraceno: Aerocene
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Eva Horn, Studio Tomas Saraceno, Tim Ingold, Timothy Morton, 2017 Hardcover, pages
Publisher: Skira, Milan Read more
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Tomás Saraceno
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow | Moving Atmospheres December 1, 2020Tomás Saraceno’s talk will focus on the history of the interdisciplinary community known as Aerocene and his other projects devoted to the exploration of the...Read more -
Tomás Saraceno
THE SHED | Conversations on Environmental Justice August 2, 2020Artist Tomás Saraceno and medical writer Harriet A. Washington have a conversation around air quality and environmental racism in relation to the pandemic, followed by...Read more -
Tomás Saraceno
Berlin Art Link | Studio Visit with Tomás Saraceno January 31, 2020Tomás Saraceno's Berlin studio is a space for experimentation and testing out intricate ideas. It contains a room devoted to his spiders, who form the...Read more -
Tomás Saraceno
TED Talk April 7, 2017In a mind-bending talk that blurs the line between science and art, Tomás Saraceno exhibits a series of air-inspired sculptures and installations designed to usher...Read more -
Tomás Saraceno
Building “future flying cities” with spiders | SFMOMA December 16, 2016Tomás Saraceno discusses his installation at SFMOMA, Stillness in Motion—Cloud Cities (2016). He describes how the piece illustrates his vision of “future flying cities” built...Read more -
Tomás Saraceno
Artist talk with Leila W. Kinney and Molly Nesbit at t Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York March 28, 2015Tomás Saraceno in conversation with Leila W. Kinney, Executive Director of Arts Initiatives at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and Molly...Read more -
Tomás Saraceno
The Creators Project November 24, 2014Tomás Saraceno sits down with The Creators Project to talk about the architecture of flying buildings, spider webs and solar balloons.Read more