The OURS Projects
Arthur Woods In the 1970’s my art had become inspired by scientific information about the nature of the universe which was reflected in my primary mode of expression, which at this time was mostly painting. In 1975, my wife and I moved to Zurich which exposed me to a thriving contemporary art scene. Four years later we moved to the US and, after a year and a half, we decided that Switzerland was the better choice for our circumstances and we returned to Switzerland in 1980. Signs & Symbols Acrylic on Canvas, 70 x 70 cm Back in Switzerland, my [...]
The Cosmic Dancer Sculpture on the Mir Space Station
On May 22, 1993, a sculpture called the Cosmic Dancer by the Swiss-American artist Arthur Woods was launched to the Russian Mir space station on a Progress rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Cosmic Dancer – a painted geometric form made out of welded aluminum tubing measuring approximately 35 x 35 x 40 centimeters and weighing exactly one kilogram – was the first three-dimensional artwork to be specifically conceived for and officially realized in a space habitat. The purpose of the project was to investigate the properties of sculpture in weightlessness and to evaluate the integration of art into the human [...]
Ars Ad Astra – The 1st Art Exhibition in Earth Orbit
The Orbiting Unification Ring Satellite and the OUR-Space Peace Sculpture projects were the beginnings of the OURS Foundation’s “private space program” which began to unfold and develop in other and sometimes parallel directions. Below is the history and details of the spaceflight of the Ars Ad Astra: The 1st Art Exhibition in Earth Orbit that was realized on the Mir space station. Ars Ad Astra: Mir Space Station 1995 Involving other artists in space has always been one of my goals. In my negotiations with the Russian space company NPO Energia in 1990, the idea to organize an art exhibition [...]
The Role of Art in the Space Environment
Artworks that may be simultaneously experienced by the entire planet represent a revolutionary development in the history of the visual arts. In 1911, Wassily Kandinsky wrote: “The great epoch of the Spiritual which is already beginning, or, in embryonic form, began already yesterday......provides and will provide the soil in which a kind of monumental work of art must come to fruition." The British art historian Herbert Read (1967) has written: “The artist and the community are profoundly interrelated. Traditionally, artists have been channels for the tempo, the tone and the intensity of their society. The function of their art is [...]
Why Space Art? = Why Space?
Approximately 100 years ago, at the beginning of the modernist era and of "modern art", the avant-garde was characterized by its confidence and optimism about the future. They held the firm belief that the industrial age was opening many new territories to explore and that art, in its most noble and explicit way, would find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained. There was no sense that civilization would ever be threatened by the very forces that fueled their optimism. There were no statistics about pollution, overpopulation, ozone holes, and resource shortages to numb the [...]
Space, Art and the Future of Humanity
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at the beginning of the modernist era and of modern art, the avant-garde was characterized by its confidence and optimism about the future. The artists, writers and philosophers of this era held the firm belief that the industrial age was opening many new territories to explore and that art, in its most noble and explicit way, would find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained. There was no sense that civilization would ever be threatened by the very forces that fueled their optimism. There were no statistics [...]
Arthur Woods In the 1970’s my art had become inspired by scientific information about the nature of the universe which was reflected in my primary mode of expression, which at [...]
On May 22, 1993, a sculpture called the Cosmic Dancer by the Swiss-American artist Arthur Woods was launched to the Russian Mir space station on a Progress rocket from the Baikonur [...]
The Orbiting Unification Ring Satellite and the OUR-Space Peace Sculpture projects were the beginnings of the OURS Foundation’s “private space program” which began to unfold and develop in other [...]
Artworks that may be simultaneously experienced by the entire planet represent a revolutionary development in the history of the visual arts. In 1911, Wassily Kandinsky wrote: “The great epoch of [...]
Approximately 100 years ago, at the beginning of the modernist era and of "modern art", the avant-garde was characterized by its confidence and optimism about the future. They held the [...]
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at the beginning of the modernist era and of modern art, the avant-garde was characterized by its confidence and optimism about the [...]
