finally, nearly three months after it’d opened, i race to the tomas saraceno exhibition at the cca and hell’s bells it did not disappoint: i was half-bewitched from the time i stepped into the darkened gallery that afternoon.

while the metal-framed cuboid exhibits (i had thought them glass boxes until i went up close) with intricate web structures were abundantly photographed and reproduced in publicity materials and reviews, in none had there been any photo of what was my favourite exhibit, something that looked completely different from the others: mounted on a platform, a huge horizontal wind ‘harp’, about three, four meters across, thin metal prongs, like enormous sewing needles, threaded with spiders’ silk, only not exactly strung tight like the usual aeolian harps — the silk were in loose and billowy movement, mimicking the ballooning of spiders (charlotte’s children, i thought of.) the whole thing was carefully spot-lit at intervals so that the threads glistened overhead in the dark. very few people were in the gallery, so i first sat and then lay down on the platform steps, just underneath the harp, watching that undulating and somehow numinous movement for a long time.

[the room was far too dark for video recordings but here are 18 rather shaky seconds on my ipad]