EN_Etere - Rome Gallery Weekend

29/01/2026

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10/04/2026

Exhibitions

Felix Kiessling

ETERE

Curated by Matteo di Stefano and Mario Iannelli

ETERE by Felix Kiessling is a journey through time and matter, where time is understood as sampling and interpretation, and matter manifests in the charge and energy of the atom, in the electromagnetic waves of light, and in the subjective and collective dimensions of temporal experience. The exhibition unfolds within a fluid, non-objective reality, offered to the cognitive system through phenomena, where perception, space, and time emerge as shared and constantly evolving constructions. The exhibition offers bodily and sensory experiences that translate energy and light into perceptible forms. Stroboscopic light passes through the viewer’s body, engaging them directly and evoking the dynamics of high-energy particles. In this context is Ionogram Butterfly II, a concentrated, bright point of light installed at eye level, which visualizes in real time the results of SAASST’s Ionosond research, “dialoguing” with the ionosphere and listening to its signals, where high-energy particles from solar surface explosions interact with the Earth’s atmosphere. The work, a permanent installation at the Planetarium of Sharjah / SAASST Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, introduces the immersive experience of the exhibition, establishing a direct connection between the body, light, and planetary energy.

Vibration becomes solid matter in the aluminum blocks that condense an intangible substance into pictorial forms, transforming energy into tangible objects. As Kiessling emphasizes: “The entire exhibition is not about a single hierarchical vision, but a collective one. ” This principle is evident in the chromatic genesis of the Himmelblock, determined by the mixture of samplings taken in different locations at the same hour: Zenit Leicht Blau, the point of maximum light intensity; Before Petrol e Before Ultramarin, the moment of minimal light; and Zenit Atacama, based entirely on the artist’s inner eye and the memory of an especially intense sky observed in the Atacama Desert. The exploration of ether culminates with Zenit, which investigates the phenomenal perception of the sky and planetary space through the principle of Rayleigh scattering. Blue light, with a shorter wavelength, is scattered more intensely by air molecules, while longer wavelengths appear in the red colors of sunrises and sunsets. Zenit accelerates time and Rayleigh scattering by spiraling around the Earth, capturing over 20,000 frames of sky light.

Through physical and cognitive touch, the work suggests how we make sense of reality and construct a subjective interpretation of time. The sky is no longer a distant celestial body, but a luminous presence that permeates the exhibition space: an emanation that evokes the idea of ether as subtle matter and pure light experience. Together, the exhibition’s experiences transform the gallery into a unified perceptual field, where the distinction between observer, artwork, and environment dissolves. Light is not only an aesthetic element but a phenomenon capable of altering the perception of time, space, the body, and the surrounding environment. Various traditions—from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to Irwin’s Light and Space movement, from Turrell’s Skyspaces to Eliasson’s The Weather Project, and the enactive theories of Noë and Varela—have described perception as a shared field. Kiessling’s practice is part of this continuum, introducing technology as an increasingly active component of the experience and using scientific concepts to reflect on the relationship between humans and the natural world.

Zenit evolves from the series of luminous discs Coloured Suns, born from the work Anti- Sonne, and is part of a research path that spans space (Earth Piercing), time (Zeitzeichnung – Time Drawing), and tangible natural phenomena, such as lightning (Schmetterling), or intangible phenomena, like Schumann resonances (Sound of Earth), made perceptible through real-time satellite technologies. Zenit’s peculiarity lies in not using real-time data, but relying on previously collected samplings, emphasizing the interpretative nature of time. At the same time, Kiessling engages with the gallery space not only as architectural support but as an active subject carrying historical traces and layered meanings. The immediacy of perception and the event of “planetary space” confront the illusionism of ancient frescoed ceilings and the exhibition realized by Alberto Garutti at La Nuova Pesa gallery thirty years ago, in 1996, titled Paesaggio domestico. On this occasion, Specchio forato is again on display, a large mirrored surface perforated to outline the profiles of furniture reflected in the artist’s living room.

The installation, composed of two mirrors facing each other infinitely, establishes a virtual parallel with Kiessling’s “Ionogram Butterfly II” exhibited in the same space. Alongside these historical and perceptual layers, the exhibition introduces an imaginary rooted in the symbolic dimension of blue, understood as a threshold and promise of space and possibility. It is within this symbolism of blue that Zenit integrates all the other colors of the spectrum, not as separate elements but as states and densities emerging from a single perceptual field. In Zenit, the shared field is composed of the same elements that form the sky evoked by the work—air, water, fire, earth, and ether, understood as a medium that contains them and makes them perceptible as a luminous experience.