When art and technology meet, they’ll find a dazzling new find a home at Artechouse, the 26,000-square-foot exhibition space that just landed in Houston. The name gives many clues to the concept that's both a production studio that brings art and technology together to create digital experimental exhibitions and a high tech venue to show these groundbreaking artworks that simply can’t be hung on a traditional gallery wall.
During a preview of the space, co-founder and chief creative officer Sandro Kereselidze tell CultureMap he believes one of the latest and perhaps greatest tools for the 21st century artist is technology. While this Houston Artechouse isn’t the first of its kind — it joins the Washington D.C, New York City and Miami venues — it is the biggest, according to Kereselidze and can support multiple exhibitions at the same time.
For their inaugural presentation, Artechouse unveils three distinct exhibitions into one show they're calling "Time and Space," as each one explores in its own unique way one of the most integral inspirations of artists throughout time, light.
Kereselidze explains that when we view the exhibitions together, they do tell a story.
“The story is of our relationship with light. Sometimes we don’t appreciate the light, but without light, life doesn’t exist. We would not be able to survive,” he says.
Photo courtesy of ARTECHOUSE
Installation in "Beyond the Light" exhibition.
And while in the past artists took up paintbrushes to try to capture light, contemporary artists can use images of galactic nurseries nurturing new born stars or even a programmed array of lasers to explore the many dimensions of light.
“It’s exciting when we’re using the latest technology to tell that story,” Kereselidze says.
Once entering the exhibition space, the first immersive art piece visitors will encounter is “Eternal Life.” Designed by Artechouse Studio, the installation was originally commissioned by the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm and makes its U.S debut in Houston. Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and touching on Nobel Prize winning discoveries from gene-editing technology to the physics of cosmic orbits, the audio-visual work screened on a large, circular, overhead canvas draws viewers into an abstract realm that feels like it holds the patterns of creation.
The second and largest of the exhibitions is “Beyond the Light,” another Artechouse Studio creation that was made in collaboration with NASA. Here, the designers and artists translate real NASA data and technology into multimedia exhibits and installations. For example, 20 years of data on global chlorophyll concentration (a.k.a the stuff of plant photosynthesis) becomes OLED screens of swirling leaf-like patterns. Nearby in the same gallery, a dynamic hanging LED light sculpture represents the balance between light and gravity in the cosmos.
The centerpiece of “Beyond the Light" is an immersive cinematic room of the same name that takes travelers on a journey through space-time, beginning with the latest images from the James Webb Space and Hubble Space Telescopes and diving into the vastness of human imagination.
The third exhibition, “Intangible Forms” is a survey of work from award-winning Japanese multimedia artist Shohei Fujimoto. Using choreographed lasers, strobes and moving lights, Fujimoto seems to have discovered ways to sculpt light itself into tangible shapes and objects. Fujimoto’s artworks play with our understanding of solid matter, light, the real and illusionary.
Kereselidze describes“Intangible Forms” as a kind of performance of lasers. “It’s a beautiful experience of seeing how an artist uses light to create these types of forms. The intangible becomes tangible in a sense.”
While all three exhibitions use the latest tools in sensory and especially visually technology to create kinetic art pieces and sometimes even installations filled with wild motion, they also paradoxically invite viewers to slow down and contemplate. The floor of the “Eternal Life” space is littered with comfortable beanbag chairs to hold the body as the video takes the mind on a journey. Visitors are also encouraged to sit on the floor or on a viewing platform to watch the 26 minutes immersive “Beyond the Light” cinematic piece. And the large room housing Fujimoto’s monumental laser installation “Intangible #Array,” provides long benches for us to sit and experience the work almost as a meditation on light and darkness.
While Kereselidze wasn’t prepared to give a timeframe on how long the three exhibitions will be in place, he explains that Artechouse Houston will host many shows in this new Houston home.
“Artechouse is a space where we dynamically change exhibits all the time,” he asserts and adds that they already have many plans for future shows to bring to Houston.
“As we speak we’re creating another 12 exhibits that we’re going to bring here. That’s what makes me excited that now we have another home to bring these exhibits to the public. When we create them, it’s sad when it’s not seen. This something like a print or a painting that be hung just on a wall. It has to be put together as a show.”
And as these shows go on they will continue to take art into a technological future.
“It’s a new medium. That’s what Artechouse is. We try to inspire the next generation. We try to empower the artists and educate the public.”
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Artechouse is located in the Heights at 600 W. 6th Street. For tickets and more information, visit the Artechouse website.
