Works by Rebecca Horn, Ai Weiwei, Jenny Holzer to Inaugurate Harvard Art Museums’ new Art in Public Spaces Initiative
The Harvard Art Museums has announced an additional inaugural special exhibition that will be on view in the museums’ newly renovated and expanded facility, opening November 16, 2014. Rebecca Horn: “Work in Progress” features a select group of the artist’s multiples, photographs, and early films, on view through May 10, 2015, in the museums’ new University Research Gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition, a specially commissioned kinetic sculpture, Flying Books under Black Rain Painting (2014), will be installed inside the museums’ new Prescott Street entrance. The sculpture, also known as a “painting machine,” will be on long-term display as part of the museums’ Art in Public Spaces initiative. Horn’s kinetic sculpture will be prominently placed opposite a work by the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei (b. 1957). Titled 258 Fake (2011), the installation is comprised of 7,677 digital photographs by the artist divided into themes, running on loops and displayed on 12 monitors. Many of the photographs were originally featured on the artist’s popular blog from 2003 through 2011, before it was shut down by the Chinese government. These large-scale contemporary works, along with an LED sign by American artist Jenny Holzer, Untitled (C-4), 1990, were chosen for installation with consideration of the architecture of the space. The Art in Public Spaces initiative—together with recent acquisitions of works by artists such as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Max Ernst, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, K. O. Götz, Jesse Aron Green, Mona Hatoum, Lorraine O’Grady, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Posenenske, Kurt Schwitters, and David Alfaro Siqueiros—emphasizes the museums’ increased focus on strengthening its modern and contemporary collections. IMAGE: Rebecca Horn, German (b. 1944), Finger Gloves, 1972, from the portfolio Performance Edition, printed 2000. Gelatin silver print. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the artist, 2014.285. © Rebecca Horn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Achim Thode.
