26 November 2011

Life Below the Surface - Exhihbition


Ordinarily we hear of artist trying to make art more accessible to the public, but this one time an artist has purposely placed his work in an out-of-the-way place. 

After diving to view the world's second largest artificial reef in 2010, artist Andreas Franke decided to turn the artificial reef - a sunken ship - into an underwater art gallery.

The artist took photos of the landscape inside the Vandenberg, documenting the day to day scenes aboard the 523 foot long ship.  He then added people to these scenes, bringing a new form of life to the underwater stage.

The Vandenberg military ship is located 100 feet below the surface in the Florida Keys National Marine Sancturary, about seven miles south of Key West.  

The  exhibit features 12 photographs encased in watertight plexiglass and attached to the side of the Vandenberg with strong magnets, ensuring that there will be no damage when the pictures are removed. 

Divers who want to visit the exhibition are able to charter boats from Key west to take them to the Vandenberg Site.  The peaceful scenes depicted in the exhibition are made even more surreal by the environment in which they sit.


9 comments:

  1. wow Ange...these are amazing..those ballerinas...how the heck...???

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  2. ohh i watched the vid...makes more sense.....

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  3. first off, i'm agitated that you posted the vid... you're not the vid-poster... you're the pic poster... and unusual story poster...

    okay... i'm over it...

    only scuba'd once, out in boulder, in a pool.... it was like flying under water...

    and tho i still have parachuting on the to-do list (and/or bungee jumping), i'm wanting to scuba again... down to the deep artwork blue....

    kudos on the find...

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  4. The pictures are clever but not really my cup of tea.. but in the setting, underwater on the boat I think they look awesome. I wonder how expensive they would be to purchase. ( may see if I can source any more info on line). Think it would be pretty kewl swimming over under and around the wreck and viewing the exhibition

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  5. lol Luckily for me Dave(id) that you dont hang onto grudges as long as I do!

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  6. Saddly, nope, I've never scubered. Was all ready to go snorkling in the harbor once.. but when running to the water I sprained my ankle. ( someone had dug a hole just where the water washes over the shore .. yep .. so down I fell like a sack of spuds.. crutches for a week.

    parachuting??? no thank you.. Bungee? ... even worse than parachuting!

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  7. very life like .. I wonder if he sold any of the exhibits?

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