Constellation

The new Contemporary Art + Design Wing features a gallery dedicated to special temporary projects including large-scale installations. The inaugural installation of the space spotlights the recent acquisition Constellation (1996) by Kiki Smith. Constellation is a room-size installation on the theme of the heavens, inspired by images drawn from an early 19th-century celestial atlas. Twenty-six hot-sculpted glass animals of different sizes represent different animal-themed star patterns, some well-known, such as Ursa Major and Minor, Scorpius, Aries, and Cancer, as well as lesser-known ones, such as Corvus (the crow), Lacerta (the lizard), and Delphinus (the dolphin). Designed by Smith and produced by Venetian maestro Pino Signoretto, the animals cavort amidst cast-glass stars and their own cast-bronze scat on a night sky made of handmade indigo-dyed Nepal paper.