floating cloud installation by berndnaut smilde

‘nimbus’ by berndnaut smilde

‘nimbus‘ is a seemingly impossible sculptural installation developed for the online gallery probe by amsterdam-based artist berndnaut smilde. beginning with the concept of a vacant or abandoned room and aspirations of enhancing this ominous environment, smilde introduced smoke, moisture and backlighting. the artist was able to create the entirely eerie and whimsical illusion of a cloud floating within the gallery space. smilde treats the sculpture as representative of his appreciation of physical presence found within transitional space; the viewer may only experience this environmental sculpture for a moment before before it dissipates entirely.  

‘you could see the cloud as a sign of misfortune. you could also read it as an element out of the dutch landscape paintings in a physical form in a classical museum hall. at the same time I wanted to make (for once) a very clear image, an almost cliché and cartoon like visualization of having bad luck: ‘indeed, there nothing here and bullocks, it’s starting to rain!”-berndnaut smilde

‘the idea I had was going to be an ephemeral work. it would only exist as a photo. I thought this would work very well with the idea of probe, as the exhibitions only exist in the form of documentation. I didn’t realize there is in fact a very physical aspect about probe’s presentation. the 9 different perspectives of documentation make it possible for the spectator to wander around the space and create the opportunity of visiting the exhibition. therefore with every shoot we had to make a new cloud and keep in account approximately the same lighting and position to create the illusion of physically walking through the space.‘ -berndnaut smilde

the artist recently exhibited an additional cloud sculpture known as ‘cumulus’ for HMK {Hotel MariaKapel} in the start of 2012.

via its nice that