VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

This summer, Blaffer Gallery presents Tomás Saraceno's first large-scale museum exhibition in the United States. Showcasing twenty installations, sculptures and photographs made since 2003, Tomás Saraceno: Lighter than Air is on view at Blaffer from May 14 through August 7, 2010. A free opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, May 13, from 6 until 8 p.m.

Trained initially as an architect, Saraceno follows in the tradition of visionaries such as R. Buckminster Fuller by looking to scientific principles and advances in technology to develop ideas for future sustainable communities. But instead of utopia on land, Saraceno looks to the sky for his inspiration. His long term project entitled Air-Port-City (2001-present) envisions networks of mile-long geodesic balloons that provide living environments aloft in international air space. Free from geopolitical borders, these habitable cells would combine and separate much like drifting clouds, challenging concepts of nationhood and land ownership.

In Lighter than Air, the laser-printed Liverpool/Flying Garden/Air-Port-City (2008) illustrates Saraceno's heavenly utopia alongside architectural prototypes of the artist's aerial habitats. One of these is 32SW/Flying Garden/Air-Port-City (2007), a cluster of inflated spheres anchored to the floor, wall and ceiling of the museum. It contains Spanish moss, a plant that lives solely on water and airborne nutrients, suggesting that the presence of sustainable floating communities is what the future may indeed hold.

Saraceno is internationally recognized for his prototypes that use the interdependencies of systems to ponder ecological questions that go beyond the natural world. The artist contrives environments that anticipate new socio-cultural platforms for experiencing and interacting with our surroundings. "Now there is an even better consciousness of sustainability in our lives on planet Earth," Saraceno explains. "In this way, my work tries to explore and interpret the present reality, using technological innovations for new social objectives."

Tomás Saraceno was born in Tucamán, Argentina, in 1973, and currently lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Most recently, he has had solo shows in Berlin, Luxembourg and Copenhagen, as well as an installation in the 2009 Venice Biennale, Making Worlds.

Tomás Saraceno: Lighter than Air was organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and curated by Yasmil Raymond, curator of Dia Art Foundation.

Tomás Saraceno: Lighter than Air is on view concurrently with First Take: Jacco Olivier.

Schedule of Events:

6 - 8 p.m. Thursday, May 13
Opening Reception

3 p.m. Saturday, May 15
Tomás Saraceno in Conversation with Yasmil Raymond
Freed Auditorium, Glassell School of Art
5101 Montrose Boulevard
*Co-hosted by the MFAH's Latin American Art Department and Latin Maecenas

About Blaffer Gallery:
Founded in 1973, Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, was named in honor of the late Sarah Campbell Blaffer, a noted Houston arts patron and collector. Since its inception, the museum has been a vital force in the presentation and promotion of contemporary visual arts in Houston. Blaffer Gallery is located in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Houston's central campus, entrance 16 off Cullen Boulevard. It is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Sundays, Mondays and university holidays. The museum is ADA compliant. For general inquiries, please call 713.743.9530, or visit the museum online at www.blaffergallery.org.

Blaffer Gallery exhibitions and programs are supported by the Blaffer Gallery Director's Discretionary Endowment Fund, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, The George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, KUHF 88.7 FM, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Educational outreach programs are made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional educational support is provided by Dorothy C. Sumner, the Travelers Foundation, the Kinder Morgan Foundation, and an anonymous donor. Staff salaries are supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.