I Live Under Your Sky Too

Artwork: Shilpa Gupta, I Live Under Your Sky Too, 2004-ongoing, LED light installation

Having been born and raised in Mumbai, India, artist Shilpa Gupta has built her multi-disciplinary art practice around exploring diverse communities, languages, religions and beliefs. Gupta grew up attuned to the richness of her environment and the sensitivities that come from such differences, with her art often focusing on people on the fringes whose presence might be muted or isolated. In her LED light installation, I Live Under Your Sky Too (2004-ongoing), the title features as script in three languages, with English and Urdu being constant, while a third is included depending on where the installation is shown, such as the recent inclusion of Spanish for the exhibition in Centro Botín in Santander, Spain (2024). The different languages are lit up separately at intervals. The Urdu is significant for being the national language of Pakistan, as well as the official language of Kashmir, a region of northern India that is still in a territorial dispute between Pakistan and India. Perhaps this conflicted region illustrates the artworks intention, that no matter who we are, or where we live, we all live under the same sky.   

23:56:04

Since 1851, Foucault’s pendulum has hung in the Panthéon in Paris. It is a scientific device that demonstrates the Earth’s rotation. In 2022 artist Anne Veronica Janssens created an installation inspired by the swinging pendulum, 23:56:04. On the floor of the Panthéon, beneath the soaring dome ceiling, Janssens installed a round mirror, reflecting the architectural surrounds, and most notably the movement of the pendulum. The seemingly infinite reflection creates a submersive effect for the viewer, accentuating the hypnotic swing of the pendulum. Janssens’ artwork often deals with the fleetingness of experience and change, engaging the individual’s perception of the world and their body, mostly using light or glass and the optical effects as a medium.

The short video shows the installation of the site-specific artwork, and features Janssens’ description of the piece: "Enigmatic at first glance, 23:56:04 maintains a relationship to the celestial while being specifically linked to the arch of the Panthéon. 23:56:04 corresponds to the sidereal day, i.e. the length of time it takes the Earth to rotate once around itself before repositioning itself in relation to fixed stars. Its rotation was first revealed to the general public in the Panthéon in 1851, when Léon Foucault demonstrated its movement with the help of the pendulum."

The sound of stars

Artwork: Charlotte Charbonnel, Asterism, 2014

What do stars sound like? French artist Charlotte Charbonnel’s installation, Asterism (2014), recently featured in the exhibition Metamorfosi at LABS Contemporary Art in Bologna, Italy, attempts to answer this question.

In collaboration with NASA, Charbonnel was able to translate the pulsations of stars into sound from the long wave signals that stars generate. The sounds of stars were then diffused into elegant tripod structures topped by glass spheres to be listened to. Similar to many of her installations such as Nebula I, where she etched the ephemeral instance of a cloud (see my art story for this work here), Charbonnel presents what is immense and intangible yet permeates our very lives whether as energy, vibrations, light, or the changing forms of matter, as fleetingly comprehensible to our senses. With eloquent and poetic precision, Charbonnel’s artwork creates spaces to dwell in wonder at what is rarely discovered or thought about by many people as they go about their everyday lives.

Horizons

Artwork: Photograph by Pi Nousse (@pi_nousse), Taghazout, Morocco, 2024

Haven’t posted much lately, but I think I’ve just been looking for inspiration and to connect to whatever makes me feel free, and to what I love. Reflecting a lot on the past four years, the stress and craziness of it all, the sorrows, frustrations, heartbreak and small moments of joy. How in some ways my life, and my perspective of this world, got turned upside down and inside out. This photo popped out for me, the calm and simple beauty of this skater looking out on the sea and horizon in Morocco. The peace and freedom of it.

night magic

Artwork: Street art by Kenny Random, Italy, 2024

Some night magic in Padova, Italy, from street-art poet Kenny Random (@kennyrandom).

Fallen Angels

Artwork: Anselm Kiefer, Engelssturz (det.), 2022-2023. Photo: Georges Poncet

In Anselm Kiefer’s monumental recent exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Angeli caduti (Fallen Angels), there appears an equivalence with the falling of the divine angelic beings, especially the figure of Lucifer, with that of humanity. The historical, philosophical and spiritual coalesce with the contemporary, whether references of war such as the wing of an airplane protruding from a canvas, the names of modern artists such as the French surrealist Antonin Artaud, or the presence of sunflowers which brings Vincent Van Gogh to mind and his capturing of the light of Southern France, all these flawed humans who reach for the ineffable, even the divine, but are also caught in the hellish activities of battle or grounded in the material world emphasised by the sheer materiality of his paintings and sculptures.

 The massive painting Engelssturz with its saturated gold-leaf sky and the angel either falling or flying above the earth, epitomizes the struggle between good and evil, the divine and earthly matter. Kiefer comments about the process of creating his art, “Destruction is part of the creative process. I place my paintings outside: I submerge them in baths of electrolysis.” The alchemical and transformative aspect of the process heightens the tension between the materiality of the work while the subject strives to reach beyond to higher dimensions of knowing and experience.

 In the last room of the exhibition, Kiefer features the words of the Italian poet, Salvatore Quasimodo, traced along the walls, “Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world/ pierced by a ray of sunlight/ and suddenly it’s evening.” The conflict between light and dark within the human condition, of striving to go beyond what is base and material, whether to embody goodness, to feel the divine in one’s life, to stand in the light, even when darkness prevails, is an ever-present theme in Kiefer’s art, and one that is never truly resolved.  

Beauty

Artwork: Mural by Millo, Beauty, Limassol, Cyprus, 2024

One of my favourite street artists Millo just completed this wonderful mural titled Beauty in Limassol, Greece, and is part of a series of 8 murals he’ll be working on in the coming months.

On the series of murals Mills writes: “With the aim of creating a unique public art square in the island of Cyprus, this mural and the next to come, will all be representing different moments of our life symbolically connected with the native island species and their meanings.”

Currents

California-based surf company Album Surf’s short film Currents, is focused on surfer Victor Bernardo simply riding waves, going with the ocean swells, and is kind of meditative, a little trippy, immersive and has some great drone footage. Directed by Matt Kleenex with FPV footage by Nicolas Gaillard. Check it out.

cat's claws

Love this! One big cat scratching wall by @oakoak_street_art. 😻

Artwork: by @oakoak_street_art, 2024

The Key

Artwork: Mural by Seth, Palestinian village, 2022

A poignant mural by Seth (@seth_globepainter), painted in a Palestinian village in 2022. Here’s what he wrote about it recently:

“This boy was painted in 2022 in Qalandia, a Palestinian village wedged between two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The key is an important symbol for refugees. It represents the memory of the home they left and the hope of being able to return there one day.
Today for the population of Gaza in hell, the key evokes not just the bombed-out home, but above all the possibility of escaping death and their unshaken desire to be able to live freely one day.”

Concert in Reverse

Poem/art story based on Rebecca Horn’s installation for the Sculptur-Projekte in Münster, Germany, 1987, Concert in Reverse (Das gegenläufige Konzert): 

in the darkest heart 
of a forest, a turret of stone 
with a pool of black water 
at its centre, flecked 
by impossible stars
sunk deep into 
the bowels of the earth—
they were ordered 
to tie their own noose 
as a serpent wound its
way around a deadened tree
limbs jutting into the bricks
high enough to hang—
the officers with the death’s head
skulls on their lapels, dragged 
the prisoners from their cells 
to an overhanging platform
their black uniforms 
cast in shadows, draped
with sinister wings
by the oil lamps’ flames
while high above a bird pecked
a hammering rhythm, marking 
time with the drops of rain
falling into the watery depth beneath
each sound carved into the silence
awaiting them, their breath 
sucked by fear as the vice 
of death, that twining serpent
ever closer, the ropes finally
hung, waiting to swing
and they took one last glance
upward, a futile escape
the tower open wide to the sky
above, yet what they finally saw
was the light mirrored dark
and endless below

(Rebecca Horn, Concert in Reverse (Das gegenläufige Konzert) 1987/97
Multi-part installation at the Zwinger municipal tower, Münster)

© Angela Jooste 

donkey food

Artwork: Unmute Gaza @unmutegaza Barcelona Action, February 6, 2024, photo: @senyorerre (in support of the photojournalists in Gaza)

Poem for a little girl in Gaza, using some of her words:

who is left?
my parents, she said quietly
who is gone?
my brother and sister
can you sleep?
no, her voice barely above a whisper,
I shake at the noise, any noise
you must be tired?
exhausted and scared, she said flatly
and food? what do you eat?
donkey food, she said eyes dark and
depthless, empty
it’s disgusting, but it’s all we have
she said, with finality
and your home?
what home, she said, turning away
it’s gone

© Angela Jooste

Shinobi

Artwork: Paste-up by @neftnik, "Do not approach…dangerous squatting ninja with attitude”, Melbourne, 2023

Just finished watching House of Ninjas, (season 1), which is great and I highly recommend (learned the real name for ninjas is “shinobi”), and I came across this pretty awesome paste-up by @neftnik in Melbourne. Crouching ninja, “Do not approach”!!!

The Lightning Bird

Artwork: Robin Rhode, The Lightning Bird, (detail) 2022

South African artist Robin Rhode’s artwork combines street art, performance, storytelling, and a wonderful use of ephemeral mark making like chalk drawing, as well as unconventional methods incorporating bicycles and skateboards. In his work The Lightning Bird (2022) he is restaging mythologies to pass stories onto future generations.

He wrote this about his piece: “In some traditions, the lightning bird is believed to be a messenger of the gods, sent to deliver divine justice or punishment to those who have wronged others. It is said to strike down evildoers with bolts of lightning, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake.
Despite its fearsome reputation, the lightning bird is also revered for its role in the natural world. In many African cultures, storms are seen as necessary for cleansing the earth and replenishing the land with water, and the lightning bird is seen as a symbol of the cyclical nature of life and the power of renewal.
In some stories, brave heroes embark on quests to seek out the lightning bird, hoping to harness its power for their own purposes. Yet, the lightning bird remains elusive, appearing only when it chooses and disappearing just as quickly, leaving those who encounter it in awe of its majestic and terrifying presence.
In African mythology, the lightning bird serves as a reminder of the awe-inspiring forces of nature and the mysteries of the cosmos, inspiring both fear and wonder in those who dare to glimpse its power.”

To Breathe-Alula, 2024

Artwork: Kimsooja, To Breathe-Alula, Saudi Arabia, 2024

A wonderful installation has been created for Desert X AlUla2024 in Saudi Arabia by Korean artist Kimsooja titled, To Breathe- AlUla. Kimsooja’s installations are often meditative spaces where she engages with the natural environment and the quality of light; blurring boundaries, and exploring ways of seeing where space seems to unfold so that solid surfaces and structures appear fluid and expansive. I wrote an art story of her Yorkshire Sculpture Park installation, also titled To Breathe, 2019. Viewers of the AIUla installation walk a spiral structure where light refracts into rainbows, the sky above, the desert sand beneath. Kimsooja often says in interviews that her interest is in “being nothing/nothingness and making nothing/nothingness”, where breath connects the viewer through the process of inhaling and exhaling with their surrounds, and the work of art itself.  

Kimsooja said this about the Desert X installation: “To Breathe-AlUla” is a reflection on a conceptual and geometrical formation of the AlUla desert landscape. It reflects the movement of wind and the passage of light traversing through the spiral path of prismatic glass surface that becomes a fluid, translucent canvas. Sunlight unravels into an iridescent color spectrum, casting rainbow colored shadows and circular brushstrokes onto the sandy earth. Audiences partake in a contemplative performance by walking through and gazing at the shifting light spectrums, which render visible vibrations of light normally invisible to the naked eyes. A walk in and out of a contained yet open path of spiral unfolds an abstract lightscape that is at once a drawing, a painting, and a sculpture.”

Voice

Artwork: Words by Addam Yekutieli, Israel, 2024

Israeli artist Addam Yekutieli (aka Know Hope and @thisislimbo) whose work I’ve written about before, wrote these words on a wall and commented on the devastation happening in Gaza:

“No more safe zones left.
Harrowing images and testimonies coming out of Rafah. This is a moment that will be looked back upon in history. A threshold moment and a black stain on our collective morality. A moment in which our grief was weaponized to the point that we are rationalizing the decimation of an entire population.
Forget whichever hashtag or catchphrase that triggers your defense mechanisms or any other mental gymnastics routine that obstructs your view of seeing human beings as human beings. Don’t let apathy desensitize and metastasize your heart. Empathy is inherent in us. It is intrinsic and flows in our blood. Don’t lose your humanity and don’t look away. Our silence is complacency.”

Hegra Archaeological Site

Artwork: By David Popa at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra, AIUla, Saudi Arabia, 2024

Amazing ephemeral earth fresco created by David Popa (@david_popa_art) for the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra (al-Hijr / Madā ͐ in Ṣāliḥ), located in AlUla, Saudi Arabia. David Popa wrote this about the artwork: “It is my largest and most challenging work to date - with each hand stretching over 100 meters in length as they cradle one of most iconic locations in Saudi Arabia. Created with ephemeral, natural materials I am extremely humbled to be part of the I Care campaign which invites the people of AlUIa to be guardians of their heritage and protect the past to build a beautiful, bright future. I am really looking forward to sharing more of the stories and memories of this unforgettable adventure. Stay tuned!”

White blue

Artwork: By Oakoak, White Blue, 2024

Love this nod to Rothko! Street art by Oakoak (@oakoak_street_art), titled White Blue.

Keep on dreaming

Artwork: Mural by Kenny Random, Keep on dreaming…, Padova, Italy, 2019

Keep on dreaming…awesome wall mural by Kenny Random (@kennyrandom) in Padova, Italy. The cat especially makes me smile!