Thomas Zipp (b. 1966)

Schwarze Ballons (2005) is a nine-art installation by Berlin- based artist Thomas Zipp that envelops the space and engages the viewer. Appropriating the language and methodology of museum and scientific display whose roots lay in the Enlightenment, Zipp's mixed-media installation comprised of sculptures, paintings and works on paper borrows from the visual culture of science, religion and philosophy. The artist presents framed drawings that look like archival documentation alongside roughly painted portraits of menacing individuals with brightly lit eyes emerging from darkly haloed backgrounds. Two large black balloon-shaped sculptures, one suspended and one resting on the floor, fill the space with a sinister air. Conveying a senseof the man-made, Zipp's installation is a commentary on the technological and cultural advancements of the last century, invoking an overriding sense that we have walked into an exhibition from the future, lauding the achievements of a past civilisation. In so doing, Zipp calls into question the extent to which the modes of representation and presentation dictated by our own aesthetic and historic precedents are meaningful in the future.