You could be forgiven for thinking these luminous forms have been photoshopped but they are actually giant works of art by Janet Echelman. The hovering net sculptures interact with the wind, sunlight and precipitation and at night are iluuminated in vivid colour. They are like huge floating jelly fish.
Janet Echelman was first inspired to make the choreography of the wind visible when watching Indian fishermen pulling in their catches. ‘I was mesmerised by the form of their nets and the fact that they were so changeable and flexible. They became this three-dimensional form that had no weight.’ The 230 foot sculpture (above) suspends from the roof of the seven-storey Denver Art Museum above downtown street traffic and was commissioned to commemorate the Biennial of the Americas in summer 2010.
Above, Her Secret is Patience, 2009, Downtown Civic Space Park, Phoenix, Arizona. During the day, sunlight projects patterned shadow drawings on to the ground and the pedestrians below.
Echelman transforms boring public spaces as well as the already beautiful. In Florida she brought an infusion of warmth and colour to a nondescript carpark which takes up an entire city block of waterfront in downtown Tampa. ‘I was drawn to this site precisely because there was nothing to draw me to it. Its concrete construction method typifies the kind of flavourless, colourless structure we see everywhere in America that ultimately disappears from public memory…The first part of the installation is physical, a three-dimensional line drawing suspended from the celing. The second part has no physical presence at all and is merely a projection of the other, creating a 400-foot-long shadow drawing.’
The project below was installed beneath the overpasses of New York’s Westside Highway. Visitors move between the moving illuminated forms as they flag down a taxi.
She Changes (below) transformed a waterfront plaza in Porto, Portugal.
Tsunami (above) was installed in Sydney in 2011.
Howdy Avocado Sweet, Thanks for your blog post about this work!
With appreciation,
Janet
http://www.echelman.com
A pleasure – the work is beautiful. Keep us up to date with your news. Best, Jane
Just the photos of this work blow me away! AmazingI would love to see it in real life…
agree – I’m surprised Janet Echelman’s work isn’t better known because it is just stunning isn’t it?