Cloud artist leaves lasting impression of fleeting work

Smilde, center, his assistant Annegret Kellner, left, and university photographer Robert Barker look over images during the 'Nimbus' project in Milstein Hall. The works that Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde has been creating since 2012 are, by design, gone in an instant. The indoor clouds he makes and photographs for his "Nimbus" series "exist for very short moments in a specific location," Smilde said in a campus lecture April 21. When he began pursuing this form, he said, "I wanted to see if I could exhibit a raincloud; entering an empty building and have just a cloud free-floating in space." His latest "Nimbus" work was created at Cornell in the days preceding the lecture. Smilde spent three days working on the project in Milstein Hall with his partner, Annegret Kellner, and university photographer Robert Barker. Visiting associate professor of architecture Mark Morris, the College of Architecture, Art and Planning's director of exhibitions and events, began corresponding with Smilde last November. "Clouds represent both representational challenges [for artists] and freedom, and are something of a proof of artistic mastery," Morris said in his introduction of Smilde.