Boom town!

SKY PILOTS
The side-by-side exhibits "Hans Haacke 1967" and Otto Piene's "Lichtballett" at MIT's List Visual Arts Center revealed how two German-raised artists, who had been on the receiving end of Allied bombings in World War II (Piene was a teenage anti-aircraft gunner, Haacke was 9 when the war ended), began making mechanical, aerial art in the 1960s. Piene's dancing light shows and Haacke's hovering balloons, ribbons, and parachutes reclaimed the air as a place of joy, of wonder, of peace. The two shows plus surveys of Stan VanDerBeek and Juan Downey earlier in the year were part of the List's smart consideration of its own history at the intersection of art and technology in the '60s and '70s, re-presenting art that still feels groundbreaking.
READ MORE: "Haacke and Piene at MIT," by Greg Cook