Tomás Saraceno

After more than ten years and almost a million visitors, the team at the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection, together with the artist Tomás Saraceno, has decided to close and dismantle the network installation “in orbit” in K21. Originally planned to last one year, the network enjoyed great popularity - and remained so. The ravages of time are now eating away at the installation, so a complete overhaul would be necessary.

For a long time, the network installation was an integral part of K21 and a cross-generational hotspot: The North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection would like to thank the audience for its loyalty and great interest in “in orbit” and looks forward to many more encounters in K21.

The huge spatial installation “in orbit” by the artist Tomás Saraceno is a walk-in work of art. The construction is made of almost transparent steel nets, which are stretched in three levels under the enormous glass dome.

Five air-filled 'spheres' are placed within the 2,500 square meter network structure. The installation looks like a surreal landscape, a sea of clouds or like space with its weightless planets.

Visitors are invited to enter the installation and explore it by climbing. The brave ones who dare see museum visitors from a lofty height like tiny figures in a model world. Conversely, the people in the network appear like floating people in the sky from below and from the mezzanines of the Estates House. With a new VR (Virtual Reality) work, the artist is further developing the interactive component of “in orbit”.

Until January 7, 2024, you have the opportunity to float a dizzying 25 meters above the K21 piazza one last time.