July 28-August 3, 2005

artpicks

Lofty Ideals

by Lori Hill

Art

Arrive at Sir Isaac's Loft, the Franklin Institute's new installation, with a little patience. Excitable kids will collide on their way to the human-sized pulleys and the sand pendulum, and they'll muscle past you to see the funny gnomes in the Magic Eye-like image. But take a deep breath and pray that they make their way to The Giant Heart ASAP. Your reward? Smart artworks.

The installation is meant to illustrate scientific concepts like Newton's law of gravity through art; the commissioned works, several by local artists, are aesthetically pleasing to boot. The optical illusion stuff is fun, but the standouts are elsewhere. Hugh Turvey and Artemi Kyriacou's X-rays of everyday objects — a pineapple, a motorcycle, a toy robot — are unexpectedly beautiful. Temple professor Martha Madigan contributes two of her lovely photograms — images produced by arranging objects on photographic paper and leaving them in the sun to "develop." Rein Triefeldt's Chaotic Flyers (pictured) is a kinetic sculpture of bronze acrobatic dancers, made interactive by a knob on the case that sends the figures jerking in all directions (sadly, on this visit, someone had cranked it too roughly, and one-third of the acrobatic troupe lay glumly on the floor). Dee Breger is a photomicrographer: She extracts images of ordinary things from her ultra-powerful electron microscope at Drexel University, in this case finding beauty in the fibers of nylon stockings.

Be sure, though, to save a half-hour for The Way Things Go, Peter Fischli and David Weiss' 1987 film of their ambitious physics experiment: a 100-foot-long chain reaction of car tires, tea kettles, flaming bubbles and more, which unfolds silently in front of the camera. Remember that cool Rube Goldberg–inspired ad that deconstructed a Honda accord cog by cog? It's like that — only these guys did it a decade and a half earlier.

"Sir Isaac's Loft: Where Art and Physics Collide," permanent installation, Franklin Institute, third floor, 222 N. 20th St., 215-448-1200.