''Measuring the Universe'' is a

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

work by Slovak artist

Roman Ondak Roman Ondak (born August 5, 1966) is a Slovak conceptual artist. Life and career Roman Ondak was born in Žilina. He studied at Academy of Fine Arts and Design ( Slovak: ''Vysoká škola výtvarných umení'', abbr. VŠVU) in Bratislava from ...

first installed in the

Pinakothek der Moderne The Pinakothek der Moderne (, '' Pinakothek of the Modern'') is a modern art museum, situated in central Munich's '' Kunstareal''. The building Designed by German architect Stephan Braunfels, the Pinakothek der Moderne was inaugurated in Se ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

in 2007. The exhibition stars as a blank white wall and begins to fill when museum guards mark visitors' height along with their name and the current date. It is in the collection of

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, Pinakother der Moderne in

and

MoMa The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

Materials

The only items required for the installation were a white room and a few black markers. What began as a clean white space has been filled with letters and lines and numbers as people pass through the gallery. Each tiny line represents a different person. The thousands and thousands of lines show just how many people pass through the museum each day, and how many people have been affected by this installation.

References

{{Reflist

Sources

MoMA
*artbabble.org, Video Interview with Roman Ondak
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
*https://publicdelivery.org/roman-ondak-measuring-the-universe/ *https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/roman-ondak-measuring-the-universe-2007 Installation art works Performances