You find yourself disoriented as your experience John Gerrard’s “Solar Reserve”. When this installation first went “live” at Lincoln Center last fall, people stopped, gasped and stared at the public sculpture unlike any they’ve ever seen before! The images are shown on an enormous 24 feet by 28 feet freestanding display projected upon a light-emitting-diode wall. In essence, the work is meant to act as though it’s documenting how 10,000 mirrors track the sun’s movement. The Southwestern desert is the stunning backdrop for this piece; most stunning is the shadow’s gradual shift across the landscape. Sometimes, the Nevada desert is visible and other times, the images are strangely abstract. We think that Gerrard intends to remind us that we are residing within a simulated reality, one in which we are constantly shifting and have the ability to repair and improve. “Poignant” is the word we’d use to describe these thought-provoking works.
John Gerrard’s “Solar Reserve” (Tonopah, Nevada). October 2014 installation at Lincoln Center, NYC. Presented by Lincoln Center and the Public Art Fund, New York.
Image courtesy of: The Creator’s Project, photographer is Inaki Vinaixa
In this image, John Gerrard re-creates a Nevada solar thermal power plant and the surrounding desert landscape. 10,000 mirrors constantly adjust their positions in real time according to the location of the sun and reflect light onto the central tower to generate electricity.
Image courtesy of: Art Haps