The Renwick Gallery is a gorgeous place to view art, attend an event, or casually engage in art-focused discussions. The data nerd in me is planning a return visit to see the Visions and Revisions: Renwick Invitational 2016.
Norwood Viviano explores the rise and fall of American cities and industry through glass and metal sculptures. He combines data from LiDAR scan technology, antique maps, and historical census data, and employs techniques as varied as bronze casting, kiln-fusing, glass blowing, and 3-D printing to map fluctuations of growth and decline as industry and other forces exert pressure on populations. His work engages not only the geography but also the history of a place, imbuing each object with layers of information to tell stories of how urbanization, immigration, and industry shape both personal and shared histories.
Believe it or not, Norwood Viviano is actually visualizing data in these impressive glass pendants. The graphs on the floor are rendered into 3 dimensional objects demonstrating the impact of industry and population on ecosystems.
The image below is from an instillation at the Grand Rapids Art Museum captured by Janet Tyson of Hyperallergic.com.
The image below is from an instillation at the Grand Rapids Art Museum captured by Janet Tyson of Hyperallergic.com.
The different profiles are represented in color ranging from black for the oldest cities to blue as the newest. The current exhibition will be on display until January 8th, 2017 at the Renwick Gallery, Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W.