Tomas Saraceno

Tomas Saraceno
Name	Tomas Saraceno
Birth date	1973
Birth place	Buenos Aires
Nationality	Argentine
Field	Installation art, Sculpture, Architecture
Training	Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Akademie der Künste

Tomas Saraceno is an Argentine contemporary artist and architect known for large-scale installations that fuse art, architecture, science, and ecology. His work explores aerial communities, airborne structures, climate systems, and arachnology through sculptural environments, participatory projects, and research-based platforms. Saraceno's practice engages institutions, universities, research centers, museums, and communities across continents.

Early life and education

Born in Buenos Aires, he studied at the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires and later attended the Academy of Arts, Berlin and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze before training in architecture at the Universidad de Buenos Aires Faculty of Architecture. During formative years he encountered teachers and mentors linked to Germán Cabrera, Álvaro Siza, Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid, and networks connected to the Venice Biennale, Documenta and the Serpentine Galleries. He moved to Berlin and became part of dialogues at the Akademie der Künste and collaborations with the Frankfurt Städelschule, TU Berlin, and research groups at the Max Planck Society.

Artistic practice and themes

Saraceno's practice intersects architecture-related fabrication, aeronautics-inspired engineering, biology-informed systems and environmental activism associated with organizations such as the UNEP and the Smithsonian Institution. He investigates aerial habitats, atmospheric interfaces, and arachnid sociality, drawing on research from the Natural History Museum, London, the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His themes engage histories and figures like Alexander von Humboldt, Leonardo da Vinci, Buckminster Fuller, Joseph Beuys, Yayoi Kusama, and Marcel Duchamp, while referencing exhibitions at the Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and Stedelijk Museum.

Major works and projects

Key projects include large-scale airborne sculptures and communal platforms such as the "Cloud Cities" series exhibited at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Queens Museum, and the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf; the "Aerocene" project involving solar-powered balloon flights and global community experiments engaging the European Space Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and independent aeronautical researchers; and the "Arachnophilia" research program developed with arachnologists from the Smithsonian Institution and the Natural History Museum, London. He produced web-like tensile structures and inflated habitats that reference the designs of Eero Saarinen, Santiago Calatrava, Antoni Gaudí, and Frei Otto. Other notable works brought together ideas from Ada Lovelace, Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin, and Rachel Carson through participatory installations and performative works shown at venues including the Palais de Tokyo, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, HangarBicocca, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton.

Exhibitions and installations

Saraceno has presented solo and group exhibitions at major institutions: the Tate Modern Turbine Hall projects, the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Palazzo Grassi, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He participated in the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Art Biennial, and his installations have been featured during programs at the Biennale di Venezia, the Documenta cycle, and the Whitney Biennial. Site-specific commissions include projects at the Kunsthaus Graz, HangarBicocca Milano, Haus der Kunst, Serralves Museum, and the Fondazione Prada.

Collaborations and interdisciplinary research

Saraceno established platforms collaborating with institutions such as the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Royal Society, the Smithsonian Institution, the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and the University of Cambridge. He has worked with artists, architects, engineers, and scientists including teams from MIT Media Lab, Harvard University, Columbia University, ETH Zurich, TU Delft, Imperial College London, Caltech, CERN, and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Collaborative research partners and advisors have included specialists associated with the Natural History Museum, London, Kew Gardens, the American Museum of Natural History, and laboratories at the Max Planck Society and CNRS. He has engaged curators and theorists from the Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Serpentine Galleries, Museo Reina Sofía, and the Guggenheim Bilbao.

Awards and recognition

His practice has been recognized with grants, awards, and fellowships from institutions such as the Guggenheim Foundation, the DAAD, the Prince Pierre Foundation, the Hyundai Pavilion prize-style commissions, and residencies at the Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Villa Medici, and the Cité internationale des arts. He received honors connected to exhibitions at the Tate Modern, the Guggenheim Museum, and prizes linked to contemporary programs associated with the Venice Biennale, the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre, and European cultural funds administered through the European Cultural Foundation.

Public engagement and environmental activism

Saraceno's projects engage communities, activists, and policy forums including collaborations with UNESCO, UNEP, Climate Action Network International, and municipal initiatives in cities like Berlin, Buenos Aires, Paris, New York City, London, Madrid, and São Paulo. His Aerocene expeditions and public flights have involved partnerships with the European Space Agency, climate scientists from NASA, and research networks at Columbia University's Earth Institute, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory. He has contributed to discussions at venues including the World Economic Forum, the Hay Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and academic symposia at Harvard University, MIT, Oxford University, and Cambridge University.

Category:Argentine artists Category:Contemporary artists