“The Shed presents the largest exhibition in the US to date of works by artist and community activist Tomás Saraceno, producing a multisensory experience throughout the new arts center. On view from February 11 to April 17, 2022, Tomás Saraceno: Particular Matter(s) features Free the Air: How to hear the universe in a spider/web, a 95- foot-diameter installation commissioned by The Shed that will fill the soaring 17,000-square-foot McCourt space, and an expansive survey exhibition of the artist’s works and projects in The Shed’s Level 2 and Level 4 Galleries. Combined, the exhibition totals approximately 25,000 square feet. Through floating sculptures, interactive installations, and an artistic process that centers collaboration, Saraceno proposes a situated knowledge of climate justice informed by the various perspectives of human and nonhuman lifeforms that have been disregarded, such as the air, spiders and their webs, and communities impacted by inequitable environmental policies and practices.” — The Shed

“At the heart of Tomás Saraceno’s work is a new way of inhabiting and experiencing the world, one that centers on an ecologically post-fossil fuels future. Tomás presents the necessity to reevaluate how we perceive and operate in the world and what to expect from it, which he achieves through interconnected, non- hierarchical collaborations across the human and nonhuman,” said Emma Enderby, The Shed’s Curator-at-Large. “The air and the particles that define it, spiders and their webs, and our visitors are all protagonists in Particular
Matter(s) at The Shed.”

Free the Air: How to hear the universe in a spider web? “ Close your eyes, cover your ears, and sense felt vibrations…Gravitational waves resounding the cosmic web, yet to be felt. Infinite sensing of the world, life-forms weave constellations.” — From MULTIVERSE and SPIDER/WEB INTELLIGENCE from Tomás Saraceno’s Arachnomancy Cards, 2019

Installation views of Tomás Saraceno: Particular Matter(s) at The Shed. Photos by Corrado Serra.

The exhibition is organized by Emma Enderby, The Shed’s Curator-at-Large with Alessandra Gómez and Adeze Wilford, Assistant Curators. The Shed’s multidisciplinary commissioning program is conceived by Artistic Director and CEO Alex Poots with the senior program team, including Emma Enderby; Tamara McCaw, Chief Civic Program Officer; Madani Younis, Chief Executive Producer; and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Senior Program Advisor.