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Contemporary Art. Daniel Steegmann Manglene, Brazil. At Tunnel Vision in Moss, Norway. Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Rainforest.
We were in New York City for the 2017 Photo Expo and decided to check out the $4 BILLION transportation hub called "The Oculus". Formally, it's known as "The World Trade Center Transportation Hub".
Serpentine Pavilion 2022 Black Chapel by Theaster Gates
“Designed by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, the Serpentine Pavilion 2022 Black Chapel draws inspiration from many of the architectural typologies that ground the artist’s practice.
The structure, realised with the support of Adjaye Associates, references the bottle kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, the beehive kilns of the Western United States, San Pietro and the Roman tempiettos, and traditional African structures, such as the Musgum mud huts of Cameroon, and the Kasubi Tombs of Kampala, Uganda. The Pavilion’s circularity and volume echo the sacred forms of Hungarian round churches and the ring shouts, voodoo circles and roda de capoeira witnessed in the sacred practices of the African diaspora.
Black Chapel is a site for contemplation and convening, set within the grounds of Serpentine in Kensington Gardens. The structure’s central oculus emanates a single source of light to create a sanctuary for reflection, refuge and conviviality. The project mirrors the artist’s ongoing engagement with ‘the vessel’ in his studio practice, and with space-making through his celebrated urban regeneration projects.
Drawn to the meditative environment of the Rothko Chapel – which holds fourteen paintings by American artist Mark Rothko in Houston, Texas – Gates has produced a series of new tar paintings titled Seven Songs for Black Chapel. Creating a space that reflects the artist’s hand and sensibilities, seven paintings hang from the interior. In these works, Gates honours his father’s craft as a roofer by using roofing strategies including torch down, a method which requires an open flame to heat material and affix it to a surface.
As part of Serpentine’s dynamic summer programme, the Pavilion becomes a platform for live performances and public convenings. An operating bronze bell – salvaged from St. Laurence, a landmark Catholic Church that once stood in Chicago’s South Side – is placed directly next to the entrance. Pointing to the erasure of spaces of convening and spiritual communion in urban communities, the historic bell will be used to call, signal and announce performances and activations at the Pavilion throughout the summer.
Gates’ Serpentine Pavilion 2022 Black Chapel is part of The Question of Clay, a multi-institution project which comprised of exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery (September 2021 – January 2022), White Cube (September – October 2021) and a two-year long research project at the V&A. The project seeks to investigate the making, labour and production of clay, as well as its collecting history, through exhibitions, performance and live interventions, with the aim of generating new knowledge, meaning and connections about the material.”
All text © Serpentine Gallery 2022, see: www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/serpentine-pavilion-...
Looking up at the dome over the central rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History. Washington, DC.
One of a pair of oculus windows in the south transept, part of a formerly more extensive scheme of early Victorian glazing (presumably removed to lighten up the interior).
Southwell Minster is a remarkably preserved piece of Romanesque church architecture, dating from between 1108-50. The only English church to retain its full set of three complete Norman towers, the nave and transepts retain their original 12th century appearance, whilst the eastern limb was replaced by the present early Gothic choir in c1230 after its Norman predecessor was found to be too small. The last substantial addition to the building was the fine Decorated chapter house on the north side a few decades later in 1284.
The Minster was originally built as a collegiate church but stripped of this status at the Reformation, becoming merely a parish church (albeit one of the grandest in the country) for several centuries until finally being elevated to cathedral status in 1884 as the seat of the new Nottinghamshire diocese. Though on a more modest scale than most of our great medieval cathedrals, Southwell Minster fits its cathedral status so well that it is hard to imagine it not being built as such, though Southwell itself does seem a surprisingly quiet location for so grand a church, a small rural town that has become England's smallest cathedral city.
Inside the Norman character of the church is preserved in the subdued lighting of the 12th century nave and transepts, whilst east of the crossing, beyond the fine medieval choir screen, all is Gothic in the 13th century choir and aisles, light, airy and lit by tall lancet windows.
Perhaps the most famous part of the building is the octagonal chapter house entered from the north choir aisle via a vestibule. Whilst a gem of medieval architecture in its own right, the building is most renowned for its superb foliate carvings, the finest and most delicately carved to survive from medieval England The technical skill and unusually naturalistic treatment of the carved capitals and spandrels here means the 'Leaves of Southwell' should not be missed by any visitor.
Little remains of the Minster's original furnishing or decoration, following Civil War damage and a major fire caused by lightning strike in the early 18th century (which affected the high wooden ceilings of nave and crossing and the pyramid spires of the west towers, later replaced to their original design). It has however been embellished in more recent years with some outstanding glass including the huge west window installed at the end of the 20th century.
Southwell Minster is a delight to visit, and perhaps the most peaceful of all English cathedrals. For more see the link below:-
the wing of the Oculus, the transportation hub at the One World Trade Center. It feels like a bird outside, but when you go in, it becomes the belly of a whale ..
Artist: Ueno Masao
Title: Oculus
Basketry Exhibition
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK