John Gerrard installs a solar power plant in Manhattan

News - 15/12/2014 - Video : Marian Lacombe

It is an extremely sophisticated and monumental LED wall. Thanks to computer simulation, Irish artist John Gerrard virtually recreated the movements of the mirrors of an actual solar power plant located in Tonopah, Nevada. The power plant’s ten thousand mirrors follow the movements of the sun. Gerrard condensed this chase into a magnificent 60 minute long display of lights and shadows.

Passersby gain height as the perspective changes, from the desert sand to the eye of the satellite.

“ From above, the plant’s ten thousand mirrors form a perfect disc, mimicking the layout of a sunflower,” Mr. Gerrard told the Wall Street Journal. “And from the front it looks like a lighthouse, with this illuminated tower.”

The work is installed in New York on the Lincoln Center plaza.

John Gerrard
Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada), 2014

Oct 3 – December 1, 2014
Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center
Columbus Avenue between Broadway and West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023, USA

Presented by Lincoln Center, in association with Public Art Fund
www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/6048_john_gerrard_solar_reserve
www.johngerrard.net