Image is detail of Thomas Hirschhorn’s Camo-Outgrowth (Winter), a new acquisition at the PMA that is a stellar attraction of the Energy Yes! installation. The camouflage tape seems to cover tumors that have cropped up on the globes. The whole thing conveys a kind of aesthetic of illness and bandaging in an on-going story that is told new each day. Click image to see it bigger.
Post by Libby and Roberta
We ran up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art this morning to get a preview of the first of the new contemporary art installations, “Energy Yes!” which opens officially April 8 in the Gisela and Dennis Alter Gallery. Energy Yes** is part of the Notations series of temporary, six-month installations based on new thinking about the collection. Notations, as you may recall, is curated by the PMA’s new Curator of Contemporary Art, Carlos Bansualdo, assisted by Emily Hage, the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Art.
The big news is the recently purchased Thomas Hirschhorn Camo-Outgrowth (Winter) 2005, 119 globes plus wood, cardboard, brown adhesive tape and printed matter. The installation pretty much covers a wall and must include miles of sticky tape in camouflage patterning. Hirschhorn gave the museum extra tape just in case they need it. Camo is Basualdo’s first big purchase for the PMA and it’s a beaut. Two thumbs up from artblog!
We learned from Hage that the installers of the piece had freedom to make some decisions about how the piece looked. Such as, the camouflage tape against the wall was to be put on not too carefully…whatever that means.
Hage also said damaged pictures could be replaced with new magazine images of the curators’ own choosing.
Camo is not of any one political persuasion, Hage said. But it does demonstrate the globalization of camouflage. Stay tuned for more posts to come.
More images at Roberta’s and Libby’s flickr sites.
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**Energy Yes! is part of a motto coined by artist Hirschhorn. The whole motto is “Energy Yes, Quality No!” Could be the curators don’t agree on the last part of the sentiment.
