Human, non-human and more-than-human
A piece of digital comms work for Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) has been teaching me all about non-human thought and intelligence…
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s holographic work OPERA (QM.15) (2016), features the artist herself appearing in the guise of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas.
It was announced in April 2019 that Carlos Urroz, formerly director of ARCOmadrid, had been appointed director of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), the foundation created by the philanthropist and collector Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, representing the fourth generation of the Thyssen-Bornemisza family’s commitment to the arts. In September, TBA21 inaugurated its new Madrid offices, located in the Barrio de las Letras de Madrid, marking a new and exciting step for the foundation, evidence of its firm commitment to Spain.
Tomás Saraceno has developed a body of work inspired by the complex structures of spider/webs that have expanded the horizons of scientific research.
TBA21 has a four-year agreement with the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid to present a series of contemporary art exhibitions from the TBA21 collection at the museum. The current exhibition, More-than-humans, featuring works by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tomás Saraceno, focuses on otherworldly intelligences that surpass human understanding. Curated by Stefanie Hessler, the exhibition invites viewers to explore works that ask questions about artificial intelligence, the collective minds of animals, and the power and attraction of the unknown.
For Saraceno, spider/webs inspire a wealth of interpretations around forms of sociality, construction, and communication that could prove essential for imagining new ways for humans to inhabit the world.
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, Founder of TBA21 said: “I strongly believe in art’s power to transform and its potential to raise awareness and show the possibilities of alternative realities that generate empathy and enlightenment. The role that TBA21 wants to assume in Madrid, is to bring this kind of activation through new ideas to the public space, to a regular and growing local community, as well to nurture an engaged and motivated new audience to the museum. The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection should be seen as a collective of energy, generationally driven, not simply a collection of artworks that span centuries. Culture is an expression of who we are, our history, but also of the progress that we have made.”
“Education refers to motivation, to the desire of experiencing aspects of the world that are less known to us. No art preaches or illustrates us about ideas, but it rather creates a motion inside ourselves. That is, things we experience a force that compels us to ask more, to question, to even dislike or doubt what we see and yet what we experience remains in our minds. This memory of what we just experienced is the best classroom ever, one totally tailored for us, for our concerns to take another shape, our imagination another path. The contemporary art program of TBA21 is intended at creating this sense of surprise in the context of the Thyssen National Museum, a feeling of generosity intended to inspire you, to make us feel we are part of the solution.”
More-than-humans is on display until Sunday 1 December.