Whitney Biennial 2026 | Art & Artists

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Michelle Lopez (she/her)

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Displayed on a circular screen overhead, the film Pandemonium originated as a live, multimedia performance that Michelle Lopez originally staged inside the dome of a planetarium. An immersive meditation on human-made disasters, the film combines animated imagery of a destructive storm with footage of newspaper clippings swirling out of a large-scale tornado machine built by the artist. In this work, Lopez reflects on media overload, disinformation, and chaos through environmental collapse. 

Pandemonium premiered at Moore College of Art and Design and the Franklin Institute’s Fels Planetarium, Philadelphia.

Desplegada en una pantalla circular en la parte superior, la película Pandemonio se originó como un performance multimedia en vivo que Michelle Lopez originalmente escenificó dentro del domo de un planetario. Siendo una meditación inmersiva sobre los desastres creados por el ser humano, la película combina imágenes animadas de una tormenta destructiva con secuencias de recortes de periódico que salen disparados de una máquina de tornados a gran escala construida por el artista. En este trabajo, Lopez reflexiona sobre la sobrecarga mediática, la desinformación y el caos creado por el colapso ambiental. 

Pandemonio se estrenó en el Moore College of Art and Design y The Franklin Institute’s Fels Planetarium de Filadelfia.

Pandemonium, 2025

A swirling tornado of dust and broken debris rips through a circular brick wall opening.
A swirling tornado of dust and broken debris rips through a circular brick wall opening.

Michelle Lopez, still from Pandemonium, 2017–2025. 360-degree animation, color, silent; 20 min. Collection of the artist. © Michelle Lopez Studio. Image courtesy of the artist. Photography by Michelle Lopez

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Frank WANG Yefeng, The Levitating Perils #2

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.