Learn English with the News: “Clouds”

Good morning!

Today’s news will make you want to visit museums. We do!

Let’s remember the steps:

1. Read the text
2. Understand the vocabulary
3. Watch the video

Text

You wouldn’t call this exhibition fluff, but some of the subject matter certainly is light. These cloud images are the work of Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde, who used a fog machine to create the series.

– Well, the clouds they’re a combination of smoke, moist and light, basically just there for a few seconds then it falls apart and in that few seconds I document it.

Called “The Uncanny” the exhibition features two emerging artists, Smilde and Adeline de Monseignat. It draws on each one’s relationship with their materials and the ways in which they create a sense of unease for the viewer by using the familiar out of context. De Monseignat calls her figures “creaptures”, a cross between sculptures and creatures.

– What really ‘The Uncanny’ is, is this uncertainty of whether something is alive or not, animate or inanimate, it is that moment where you’re not quite sure what it is that you’re looking at, so the fact that I am using organic materials suggests a sense of life, yet obviously they are sculptures, and I also work with motors.

“The Uncanny” was organized by independent curator, James Putnam and will run in London’s Ronchini Gallery until February the 16th.

Vocabulary

Fluff – something light and soft: such as a : small balls or pieces of thread, fiber, or dust. It also means something that has little importance or interest.

Fog – many small drops of water floating in the air above the ground, the sea, etc.

Moist – slightly or barely wet : not completely dry.

Uncanny – strange or unusual in a way that is surprising or difficult to understand.

Curator – a person who is in charge of the things in a museum, zoo, etc.

Video