{"id":212225,"date":"2025-12-26T17:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/212225\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T17:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:51:10","slug":"embark-on-a-visual-voyage-of-art-inspired-by-black-holes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/212225\/","title":{"rendered":"Embark on a visual voyage of art inspired by black holes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gamwell sees echoes of Mitchell\u2019s dark stars, for instance, in Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s short story, \u201cA Descent Into the Maelstrom<\/a>,\u201d particularly the evocative 1919 illustration by Harry Clarke. \u201cThis seemed to have been an early analogy to a black hole for many people when the concept was first proposed,\u201d said Gamwell. \u201cIt\u2019s a mathematical construct at that point and it\u2019s very difficult to imagine a mathematical construct. Poe actually envisioned a dark star [elsewhere in his writings].\u201d<\/p>\n

The featured art spans nearly every medium: charcoal sketches, pen-and-ink drawings, oil or acrylic paintings, murals, sculptures, traditional and digital photography, and immersive room-sized multimedia installations, such as a 2021-2022 piece called Gravitational Arena by Chinese artist Xu Bing. \u201cXu Bing does most of his work about language,\u201d said Gamwell. For Gravitational Arena, \u201cHe takes a quote about language from Wittgenstein and translates it into his own script, the English alphabet written to resemble Chinese characters. Then he applies gravity to it and makes a singularity. [The installation] is several stories high and he covered the gallery floor with a mirror. So you walk upstairs and you see it\u2019s like a wormhole, which he turns into an analogy for translation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything in the vicinity of a black hole is violently torn apart owing to its extreme gravity\u2014the strongest in the universe,\u201d Gamwell writes about the enduring appeal of black holes as artistic inspiration. \u201cWe see this violence in the works of artists like Cai Guo-\u00ad Qiang and Takashi Murakami, who have used black holes to symbolize the brutality unleashed by the atomic bomb. The inescapable pull of a black hole is also a ready metaphor for depression in the work of artists such as Moonassi. Thus, on the one hand, the black hole provides artists with a symbol to express the devastations and anxieties of the modern world. On the other hand, however, a black hole\u2019s extreme gravity is the source of stupendous energy, and artists such as Yambe Tam invite viewers to embrace darkness as a path to transformation, awe, and wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"Scientific
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

One of the earliest scientific images of a black hole, 1979. Ink on paper, reversed photographically.<\/p>\n

\n Jean-Pierre Luminet\/Astronomy and Astrophysics 1979\n <\/p>\n

\n One of the earliest scientific images of a black hole, 1979. Ink on paper, reversed photographically.<\/p>\n

Jean-Pierre Luminet\/Astronomy and Astrophysics 1979<\/p>\n


\n \"Fabian
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Fabian Oefner, Black Hole, no. 2, 2014. Inkjet print<\/p>\n

\n Courtesy of Fabian Oefner\n <\/p>\n

\n Fabian Oefner, Black Hole, no. 2, 2014. Inkjet print<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Fabian Oefner<\/p>\n


\n \"Sangho
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Sangho Bang, Spaceship, 2018. Digital print<\/p>\n

\n Courtesy of Sangho Bang\n <\/p>\n

\n Sangho Bang, Spaceship, 2018. Digital print<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Sangho Bang<\/p>\n

\n Fabian Oefner, Black Hole, no. 2, 2014. Inkjet print<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Fabian Oefner<\/p>\n

\n Sangho Bang, Spaceship, 2018. Digital print<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Sangho Bang<\/p>\n


\n \"Eric
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Eric Heller, Black Holes Merging, 2020. Digital image<\/p>\n

\n Courtesy of Eric Heller\n <\/p>\n


\n \"Yambe
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Yambe Tam, Wormhole Bell, 2018. Cast bronze<\/p>\n

\n Private collection. Photo: Albert Barbu\n <\/p>\n


\n \"Rudolf
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Rudolf Sikora, Black Hole II, 1976\u20131978, from the series Concentration of Energy. Photograph.<\/p>\n

\n Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia\n <\/p>\n


\n \"Yuxi
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Yuxi Cao, Oriens: Immersive Black Hole, 2017. Sound and video installation at Today Art Museum, Beijing<\/p>\n

\n Courtesy of Yuxi Cao\n <\/p>\n


\n \"John
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

John White, Black Echo, 2023. Digital photograph<\/p>\n

\n Courtesy of John White\n <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gamwell sees echoes of Mitchell\u2019s dark stars, for instance, in Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s short story, \u201cA Descent Into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-212225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}