As life goes: Janet Echelman started out as a painter, but her material was lost on one of her trips. As a replacement, she began to work with increasingly large-scale nets. Janet Echelman’s sculptures reach heights of a good 70 meters and yet appear light as a feather. Her work “Target Swooping Austria” is made entirely by hand and consists of more than 1.6 million knots. The wind and light play with the object, which was shown to an audience of millions in a now legendary TED talk by Echelman. The fascinating work was on display for the first time in Austria at KLANGLICHT 2017.

KLANGLICHT 2017

Location: Freiheitsplatz

US artist Janet Echelman studied visual arts at New York’s Bard College. In 1987, she moved to Hong Kong to learn calligraphy. She later lived in Bali, where the crafts and art of the local population made a strong impression on her. After her house in Bali burned down, she returned to the USA and taught at Harvard University. After seven years, she returned to Asia, this time to India. Echelman observed the fishermen in her new adopted country and found their nets increasingly fascinating. She began experimenting to create large works of art from the fragile material, which have been on display in numerous cities around the world.