Celebrating a New Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Fumée d'ambre gris (Smoke of Ambergris), 1880. Oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955
On August 2, the Clark celebrated the opening of Make It New: Abstract Painting from the National Gallery of Art, 1950–1975 in the Visitor Center's new special exhibition galleries. Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, in collaboration with the Clark, Make It New examines the different paths taken by abstract painting in the first quarter-century of the postwar period, cutting across geographies and narrow timeframes as it evocatively engages Tadao Ando's architecture. The exhibition presents Abstract Expressionist and color field masterpieces alongside other canonical works organized by the formal categories of pattern, texture, and shape. Featuring key works such as Jackson Pollock's Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), Mark Rothko's No. 1 (1961), and Lee Bontecou's Untitled (1962), Make It New also includes paintings by Jean Dubuffet, Jasper Johns, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Ryman, and Cy Twombly. Make It New will be on view through October 13, 2014.
The Clark's new Visitor Center, designed by Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Osaka, Japan, features more than 11,000 square feet of special exhibition space, with galleries on two floors. A new Museum Store, café, and the main admissions desk are also housed in the glass, concrete, and granite building. Indoor and outdoor walkways connect the Visitor Center to the original Museum Building, which has been newly reconceived by Selldorf Architects, New York with renovated and expanded gallery spaces that increase overall gallery space by fifteen percent. A one-acre tiered reflecting pool is the focal point of a dramatic landscape design conceived by Reed Hilderbrand, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which unites the architecture with the 140-acre campus. The landscape design expands the Clark's walking trails and provides new opportunities to view the spectacular Green Mountain and Taconic ranges that surround the campus.
The Clark’s noted permanent collection has been reinstalled in the Museum Building, which features new gallery spaces for American paintings and European sculpture and decorative arts. Seventy-three of the Clark's French paintings have returned to the Institute following a three-year international tour to eleven cities that drew more than 2.6 million visitors worldwide.
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