Jan Tichy: Darkness

About the Exhibition

From the time that stardust and cosmic material compressed to form this planet we call Earth, one single constant has remained true, unwavering for billions of years: Each day the sun rises and sets across the Earth’s surface. This dance between the light of the sun and the darkness of night has governed the evolution of life on Earth from the start. For humans, our bodies carry these rhythms within us. Within each of our 30 trillion cells is an internal, circadian clock that is tuned to the roughly 24-hour period of our days—to the rise and fall of darkness (and light). 

But things have changed over time. With the invention of artificial lights has also come light pollution, and the erasure of darkness across our many landscapes continues to wreak havoc on the lives of many, human and other-than-human alike. And so, the questions emerge: How can we embrace our relationship with the dark? How might we rediscover ourselves, our health and well-being, under the cover of darkness? 

Artist Jan Tichy (b. 1974, Prague, Czechoslavakia; lives and works in Chicago) approaches these questions through the museum’s invitation to create a newly commissioned, site-responsive artwork. Working across disciplines and with a range of different MSU laboratories and researchers, Jan Tichy: Darkness will transform the heart of the museum into a reimagined architectural and multi-sensorial experience. Through an exploration of light as our most immediate connection to nature, the installation interrogates our relationship with architectural elements like windows, doors, and balconies, reshaping how these elements mediate our experience of the natural world, light, and darkness. At its core, the exhibition will be an invitation for visitors to renegotiate their connections to the rhythms of nature, circadian cycles, and the broader environment. 

Darkness is the second exhibition in the newly minted Signature Commission Series at the MSU Broad Art Museum. With our efforts to provide world-class, unparalleled art experiences, the Signature Commission Series is part of the forward-looking, innovative vision for the museum as it moves into the next decade of its existence. 

Jan Tichy: Darkness is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University as part of the Signature Commission Series and curated by Steven L. Bridges, Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Endowed Exhibitions Fund and the MSU Federal Credit Union