Public Process Commission: Mika Tajima

A temporary public art project by Mika Tajima, commissioned through SculptureCenter's new art education program Public Process.

For this public artwork, Tajima will create a vaporous disappearing sculpture—a void that also functions as seating and meeting zone—filled with mercurial color vapor, which dissipates in a matter of minutes. Specifically the sculpture will reference the sunken hot tub spa, which is both a social site and machine for bodily rejuvenation. The technology underlying the hot tub has its roots in aviation and medical therapy before evolving to address relaxing the body after work. 

The colors of the vapor will correspond to real-time global sentiment for gold commodity, a peculiar material that derives its value from the social perception of its qualities and the collective "mood" toward geopolitical and economic events. These vapors will bathe the viewer in these complex sentiments embodied in gold, as a material with such fluid and dematerialized exchangeability. Reflecting on the materiality of contemporary life, this object is a ghost or mirage of a familiar object—a fleeting visual trace of a material form as it fades into abstraction—into thin air. 

Exhibition overview from the Sculpture Center website.