Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
Sonja Thomsen’s “in the space of elsewhere” complements the building’s dramatic architecture.
While the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is always packed with flashy, eye-catching artwork, a new multimedia installation in the museum’s lobby is designed especially to enhance the dramatic space.
Sonja Thomsen’s in the space of elsewhere adorns the museum’s entrance and central stairway with a series of highly reflective, immersive geometric forms and patterns.
The work, which was installed in July, is site-specific, meaning it was created for MMoCA alone. Before creating it, Thomsen, a Milwaukee-based photographer and installation artist who teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago, spent nearly six months making sketches from her visits to the museum. She paid close attention to the building’s aesthetic quirks, drafting up ways to best accentuate its singular architecture.
Sonja Thomsen, in the space of elsewhere (details), 2017. Site-specific installation with mixed-media.
“As I spent more time there, there were so many details I started to clue into,” says Thomsen. “There’s a synergy there I thought was so interesting.”
According to Leah Kolb, MMoCA’s curator of exhibitions, Thomsen’s work echoes the vision of the museum’s architect, Cesar Pelli, whose designs “reflect a poetic response to the unique circumstances of purpose and place.”
In Thomsen’s work, reflective polycarbonate triangles suspended from the building’s ceiling and embedded in its architecture shimmer in the well-lit space, projecting bursts of light onto the busy intersection outside. “I wanted to make people look up from State Street, and pull them into the building. That second-floor landing now is basically a billboard,” says the artist.
At first glance, in the space of elsewhere appears relatively simple. But the triangular forms are glossy and intensely luminous, so much that they appear almost fluid, with the liquid sheen of a gasoline spill. Changes in sunlight or body positioning cause some to vanish and appear spontaneously. Several shapes have even been cached in overlooked sections of the entranceway and staircase, and are only viewable from specific angles, or while climbing the stairs.
Also part of the installation are several lengths of Aluminet, a type of shade cloth made from high density polyethylene — commonly used by farmers and greenhouse growers. “During softer light it feels like a metallic surface, and with more light it seems like a mist, and is almost impossible to photograph,” says Thomsen.
This strange, liminal quality is central to the installation, where materials flicker in and out of view, and MMoCA itself becomes a shifting, dynamic space, begging to be explored. The museum building is distinct and beautiful all on its own, and Thomsen makes sure viewers leave with a fresh appreciation.
“I’m hyper-interested in the role of discovery,” says Thomsen. “That’s where curiosity happens, that’s where questions emerge. I want people to speak about the role of wonder in spaces.”
Sonja Thomsen
