High-Flying Art

It may look like a huge balloon, but in mid October, when artist Tomas Saraceno finishes Museo aero solar—a sculpture built by volunteers from hundreds of plastic bags donated by people from around the world—he will have completed another installation of what has become an internationally acclaimed art project. Presented by the Walker Art Center, Museo aero solar has been done in a handful of spots around the world, but never in the United States. Saraceno’s month-long residency here is also the preamble to a solo exhibition of the famous architect-turned-artist’s work at the Walker next spring.

Working in collaboration with writer Alberto Pesavento, Saraceno will spend the month of October organizing the substantial community effort necessary to get Museo aero solar off the ground. On the one hand, Museo aero solar is a community effort to create and launch an air balloon made up of one of the most reviled byproducts of modernity, the plastic bag. On the other hand, it’s a visceral reminder of the human proclivity to adapt, combined with a yearning to leave behind the mess and muddle of modern society.

“Over the centuries, the sky was the center of the imaginary,” explains Pesavento. The first flying machines, aerial warfare, and space exploration were all byproducts of high-flying imaginations, says Pesavento. But the process of creating Museo aero solar is more like a progressive dinner party where participants go from house to house for each course in a meal. In this case, participants in each location add sections to the air balloon, enlarging and expanding it, creating a kind of inflatable plastic quilt.

The project echoes some of the themes prevalent in the artist’s own work. Saraceno studied in Frankfurt with Peter Cook, a founder of the avant garde, utopian-leaning Archigram architecture group. And anyone with a passing acquaintance with Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes will detect a strong kinship. Saraceno’s Flying Garden sculpture, a mass of suspended transparent spheres draped with Spanish moss, is another example of his fascination with transcending the terrestrial.

Curator Yasmil Raymond describes Saraceno as a “contemporary renaissance man, somebody whose curiosity has no boundaries.” The absence of boundaries is in itself a core theme for the artist, whose openness to unusual materials and technological innovations is a hallmark of his work. “Through this curiosity he functions sometimes in the spirit of a scientist or an architect or a community organizer,” says Raymond.

For Saraceno and Pesavento, creating the balloon is fun, but the project is really about the collaboration and conversations that go into creating it. “We like to arrive somewhere and have a collaboration with whoever is interested in joining us,” says Pesavento. “Of course, the Museo is a wonderful thing to watch, like a floating house, but we had the most interesting experiences working with people who wanted to think about the Museo with us, changing the way to do it every time, deciding the new shape to give it.”

Creating the air balloon is one thing, but flying it is another thing altogether. So far, Museo aero solar, which draws on the sun to heat the air within, has remained tethered to the earth. But with any luck, Minnesota may be the site of its first solo flight. Throughout October, Saraceno and Pesavento will do their best to spark conversation and invite participation in the project, culminating in a launch attempt at the end of the month (time and place are yet to be determined).

“We prefer to find a place in the city where everybody can join us, helping us to create a space for discussion, free work, and do-it-yourself technology,” says Pesavento. “The result of this process is unforeseeable.”

Interested in getting involved in the Museo aero solar project? E-mail Saraceno at aerosolar@gmail.com or visit museoaerosolar.org.