Andrea Galvani © Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth, 2018-2019
Audemars Piguet Prize site-specific installation with neon sculptures and performance
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, stainless steel wire rope system,, paint, electricity
Dimensions variable with architecture
Installation and performance view at ARCOmadrid 2019
Photo by Leonardo Morfini, OKNO Studio
Courtesy the artist, Audemars Piguet, and Revolver Galería 

INSTRUMENTS FOR INQUIRING INTO THE WIND AND THE SHAKING EARTH

Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth (2014-2019) is an incandescent landscape —a unified visual field that illuminates space. Through a language both abstract and physical, this monumental site-specific installation describes the engine that powers the stars; the geometry of gravity, space, and time; the emergence of life from non-living components; the possibility of being in two places at once; the distorting forces generated by black holes; and the deep symmetries that underlie it all. Developed in collaboration with physicists and mathematicians at UNAM, NASA, and the Imperial College of London, the installation was conceived as an immersive environment—an act of discovery, achieved through cycles of unknowing and exploration. Like fog in a state of suspension, a cloud of numbers rests in the transitional zone of architectural space. Mathematics is materialized in the form of hyper-objects: non-tangible things that influence and transform the world. The Universe is summoned and summarized.

This installation brings together mental abstractions and physical phenomena that originate in very different aspects of our lives. It humanizes our knowledge of cosmic concepts, maps roads taken and then abandoned, offers intimate introductions to the courageous ones who imagined what others could not yet fathom. Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth exists in a dimension where time is absent, where history and memory are unified into a projection of scientific progress and painstaking efforts to understand the natural world. Each hand-written neon equation is a memento mori as well as an object of resistance against death, revealing a more complex and nuanced reality. At certain times during exhibitions, vocalists and performers interact with the architecture, the work, and the public. Live voices produce a chorus that emanates and migrates, transforming the space into a soundscape. Like Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, Galvani’s work seems to envision a new cosmology—one that honors the power of human knowledge while simultaneously negotiating the impossibility of calculations and instruments to behold the mysteries they seek to describe.

Andrea Galvani © Noether’s Theorem, 2019
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, stainless steel wire rope system, paint, electricity
55 x 173 x 7 cm

Andrea Galvani © Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth, 2018-2019
Audemars Piguet Prize site-specific installation with neon sculptures and performance
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, stainless steel wire rope system, paint, electricity
Dimensions variable with architecture
Installation and performance view at ARCOmadrid 2019
Photo by Leonardo Morfini, OKNO Studio
Courtesy the artist, Audemars Piguet, and Revolver Galería 

Andrea Galvani © Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth, 2022
Site-specific Installation Commission for the 23rd Triennale Milano International Exhibition
Unknown Unknowns. An Introduction to Mysteries curated by Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta
Neon, white and cobalt-blue hand-blown Murano glass, metal structures, concrete bases, stainless steel wire rope system
Dimensions variable with architecture
Photo by Andrea Galvani Studio
Courtesy the artist and Triennale Milano

Andrea Galvani © The Contradictions of Fragility, 2021
Site-specific installation with 2 neon sculptures, Curated by Angel Moya Garcia
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, concrete base, wooden platform, paint, electricity
Dimensions variable with architecture
Installation view at Eduardo Secci Contemporary
Photo by Stefano Maniero
Courtesy the artist and Eduardo Secci Contemporary 

Andrea Galvani © Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth, 2018-2019
Audemars Piguet Prize site-specific installation with neon sculptures and performance
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, stainless steel wire rope system, paint, electricity
Dimensions variable with architecture
Installation and performance view at ARCOmadrid 2019
Photo by Leonardo Morfini, OKNO Studio
Courtesy the artist, Audemars Piguet, and Revolver Galería 

Andrea Galvani © 2018
Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth
Installation with neon sculptures and performance
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, stainless steel wire rope system, paint, electricity
Dimensions variable with architecture
Installation and performance detail at Revolver Galería, Buenos Aires
Art Basel Cities
Photo by Fabián Cañás

Andrea Galvani © 2019
The Totality of Electromagnetic Phenomena [Maxwell’s Equations]
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structure, concrete base, paint, electricity
Approx. 202 x 123 x 19 cm
Installation view of Elevation at Fabienne Levy, Lausanne
Photo © Andrea Galvani Studio

Andrea Galvani © 2015-2017
Study on a Rotating Black Hole
6500K neon, cobalt blue blown glass, electricity
Dimensions and configuration variable with architecture
Installation view at the Mart Museum, Trento
Photo by Fernando Guerra

Andrea Galvani © 2018
Instruments for Inquiring into the Wind and the Shaking Earth
Installation with neon sculptures and performance
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structures, stainless steel wire rope system, paint, electricity
Dimensions variable with architecture
Installation and performance detail at Revolver Galería, Buenos Aires
Art Basel Cities
Photo by Fabián Cañás

↑Andrea Galvani © Epílogo #82 [Study on Trajectory], 2015
Inkjet print on paper mounted on tropical wood
↓Andrea Galvani © Epílogo #34 [Galaxy Typologies], 2014
Pencil on paper mounted on tropical wood
Installation details

Andrea Galvani © 2015-2017
Study on a Rotating Black Hole
6500K neon, cobalt blue blown glass, electricity
Dimensions and configuration variable with architecture
Installation view at Art Basel Miami Beach 2017
Photo by Andrea Rossetti

Andrea Galvani © 2015
The End [Action #9] Photographic Strips and Geographic Coordinates
C-print mounted on aluminum dibond, white wood frame
Approx. 260 x 200 x 7 cm / 102.4 x 78.7 x 2.8 inches

Andrea Galvani © 2014
The Relativity of Simultaneous Events [Einstein’s Special Relativity]
6500K neon, white blown glass, metal structure, paint, electricity
Approx. 45 x 80 x 7 cm / 18 x 32 x 3 inches