Weaving the Light

Cisternerne, one of the four Frederiksberg Museums, is an underground art venue in Frederiksberg's Søndermarken (Southern Field), a 4,400-square-meter space “into which the daylight never reaches, the humidity is close to 100%, the reverberation is of 17 seconds, and the temperature fluctuates between 4 and 16 degrees Celsius.” The setting has elicited often moody installations from the likes of Chiharu Shiota, Superflex, Jeppe Hein, and Hiroshi Sambuichi, who is also expanding the underground venue.

The current Cisternerne installation, which opened on March 26 and is in place until November 30, comes from Kimsooja, who titled it Weaving the Light. “Weaving is in a way breathing, it is living in a way because we don’t stop when we weave as if we breathe,” she explains to Christian Lund in the 7-½ minute film. “Weaving is constant action, constant evolvement, and constant answer and interaction.” Watch the short film from Louisiana Channel below this helpful description, from the Cisternerne web page, of the physical makeup of the ethereal piece.

“In an extensive installation of light and color, Kimsooja transforms Cisternerne into an ephemeral universe, where the light radiates like brushstrokes on transparent canvases and breaks the darkness. The work is comprised of diffraction grating film that is mounted on transparent panels, which altogether let light pass through a microscopic surface of horizontal and vertical prisms. Rays of light split into vibrant colors that dynamically weave in and out of the subterranean colonnades.”