Keith Tyson: Universal Symphony
Serlachius Museum, Mäntä
Through 26 October 2025
Installation view from the exhibition
Universal Symphony
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
Installation view from the exhibition
Universal Symphony
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
Installation view from the exhibition
Universal Symphony
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
In the art of British artist Keith Tyson, everything is surprisingly interconnected and without hierarchy. This is also indicated by the name of his exhibition, Universal Symphony.
Defining KEITH TYSON (b. 1969) as an artist is challenging, as he is not interested in recognisable style or self-expression. He has always been fascinated by the interstices between art, science and technology, how things are connected and how one thing leads to another.
In his works, Tyson examines the different forces, relationships and processes we use to understand the world and through which things and phenomena gain meaning. These include, for example, various physical and chemical chains of events, language models and algorithms used by artificial intelligence, and the latest achievements in quantum physics, but also poetry and mythology.
Installation view from the exhibition
Universal Symphony
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
16m3 of Ocean (Atlantic), 2024
Courtesy the artist
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
16m3 of Ocean (Atlantic), 2024 (detail)
Courtesy the artist
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
According to the exhibition’s curator, Timo Valjakka, Keith Tyson sees art as an attempt to express what cannot be conveyed in other ways. His works are based on knowledge and emotion as well as on the viewer’s experience in front of them. One example of this is the monumental 16m3 of Ocean (Atlantic), 2024. The bronze sculpture is an accurate representation not only of the surface of the ocean, but also of its mass.
Majority of the works in the exhibition are new and on display for the first time. They are placed in context by a number of earlier works. Four of them were implemented with the help of the Art Machine, developed by Keith Tyson in the 1990s, and challenge us to consider the relationship between humans and machines.
Art Machine is a set of algorithms programmed into a computer. When the Art Machine processes the material fed to it according to the given conditions, it produces a set of instructions for Tyson to implement the artwork. The instructions include the subject of the work, dimensions, materials and other parameters required at any given time.
Installation view from the exhibition
Universal Symphony
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
Nature Painting (Deep Impact), 2010
Courtesy of the artist
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
The large-scale Nature Painting (Deep Impact), 2010, on the other hand, was created as a result of the combined effects of gravity, fluid dynamics and chemical reactions. In doing so, Keith Tyson relinquished almost all control of the process and let the chemicals carve out their own paths. He calls the work a nature painting because it is not an image of nature, but a manifestation of the forces that shape nature.
Scholar's Stonei, 2023
Patined bronze
Courtesy of the artist
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
Dark Sundial, 2024
Bronze, stainless steel, electronic guidance,
motor, stone plinth
Courtesy of the artist
Photograph: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
On display in the Serlachius Manor’s Park is the kinetic sculpture Dark Sundial (2024), where Keith Tyson has replaced the traditional worldview represented by a sundial with an incomparably larger one. The long index finger of the stylised human figure shows us at every moment where the massive black hole Sagittarius A* is in the centre of the Milky Way. It is 27,000 light-years from Mänttä.
ARTIST KEITH TYSON
After his early studies in engineering, Keith Tyson pursued art at Carlisle College of Art in 1989 and at the University of Brighton from 1990 to 1993. He held his first solo exhibitions in London and New York in 1996.
Keith Tyson has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in museums and galleries across various countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America, and South Africa. He has also taken part in the Berlin and Venice Biennale in 2001 and the São Paulo Biennale in 2002. In 2002, he was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize. He was named an Honorary Doctor of the University of Brighton in 2005.
Curator of the exhibition: Timo Valjakka
Keith Tyson: Universal Symphony
Serlachius Museum, Mäntä, 24 May – 26 October 2025
