Gravity's Rainbow by Fred Tomaselli

[rich]

remember it being shown near Grand Central as public art, a few blocks from
where I was working at the time.

rich

On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 4:08 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://collection.whitney.org/object/12463
>
> At a glance, Gravity’s Rainbow (Large) appears to be composed of looping
> jewel-like strands of colors, elegantly layered against a black background.
> Close inspection, however, reveals that to make this monumental work, Fred
> Tomaselli embedded thousands of pills—ranging from prescription
> pharmaceuticals to street drugs to colorfully painted placebos—along with
> magazine cutouts and hemp leaves, in layers of transparent resin. This
> dazzling pharmaceutical array alludes to the power of art, like that of
> recreational drugs, to alter our perceptions and transport us to other
> worlds. The title originates with Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 cult novel Gravity’s
> Rainbow, in which the phrase “gravity’s rainbow” refers to the arced
> trajectory of a V-2 rocket falling on war-torn London during World War II—a
> shape echoed in the graceful arcs spanning the work. This allusion to
> impending destruction parallels the metaphorical implications of
> Tomaselli’s pharmaceutical chains: the beauty that transports us in his
> image has a dark, toxic underside.
>
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