Shanghai Planet at the MoCP

At the MoCP here at Columbia College Chicago, there were quite a few pieces of art that had caught my interest or made me look twice at it. But there was one that kept pulling me back. The Shanghai Planet 2008 by Isidro Blasco was a mixture of different medias that created this one piece that looked somewhat like a three dimensional planet popping out from the wall it was being displayed on. The small artist statement that was provided stated that this piece of art “combines architecture, photo, and installation to explore theory of vision and perception in relation to physical experience within each sculpture the viewer is encouraged to become.

If you look closely at this piece, you can see that what makes this piece pop out from the wall are small wooden beams that were constructed to not only support this piece so that it does not fall, but it is also shaped in a dome like structure showing the audience half of the planet. On the wooden beams it shows different photographic images of Shanghai. Some images show the neighborhoods, other the downtown city part of it, and other parts show the expressway/roads used there In Shanghai. On t he outer ring part of this planet, there are photographs of other smaller planets similar to that of the Shanghai planet. On each image, if you look really close, you can see that the artist wrote the name of each planet in the image. One was of Buenas Aires, another was of Argentina, and so forth it continues in this same manner. Each one similar yet different in its own way.