Walk towards the bandshell in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park any evening this summer, and you may think an alien spaceship has landed nearby. In a clearing of trees, a glowing tangle of red and white LED-lit tubing seems to hover above the ground, illuminating the night sky and the lawn below. But this is not some recently arrived extraterrestrial form of transport: it’s the latest monumental light sculpture by the Lima, Peru-born, New York-based artist Grimanesa Amorós.
An interdisciplinary artist who has made light-installations in locations ranging from Scottsdale, Arizona’s Soleri Bridge to Mexico City’s Torre de los Vientos, Amorós engages deeply with the settings for her work through an organic use of technology–here, using light not to interrupt the flow of park visitors but to reflect the shape of the bandshell and the overall surrounding landscape (“hedera” means “ivy” in Latin, a nod to the verdant plant life of the park). Constructed as part of the BRIC Celebrate! Brooklyn Festival, which brings diverse music, film, and dance to the bandshell throughout the summer, Hedera is as entrancing to those who stay outside its perimeter (its flowing light sequences lend a dreamy quality to any outdoor concert) as to those who venture under its dome and see their own reflections in its cupola.
Amorós calls the sculpture “romance with the unknown;” anyone who takes it in is likely to feel a similar alluring force. In the coming week, performers at BRIC Celebrate! Brooklyn Festival, backed by American Express, will range from Tinariwen to Courtney Barnett to the Kronos Quarter–making now the perfect time to take in some tunes while admiring Amorós’ swirling luminous display. Through Aug. 11.
