Ground/work

The Clark’s first outdoor exhibition Ground/work consists of site-responsive installations by six contemporary artists presented in locations across the pastoral setting of its 140-acre campus. International artists Kelly Akashi, Nairy Baghramian, Jennie C. Jones, Eva LeWitt, Analia Saban, and Haegue Yang were invited to conceive of a response to the Clark’s landscape and to be in active dialogue with the natural environment and setting.

Collapsing the traditional hierarchy of sculpture in the landscape where the object takes precedence over its site and context, Ground/work instead focuses on nature as subject, participant, and raw material. The projects demonstrate how the experience of space out-of-doors can be shifted and manipulated by forces both solid and ephemeral. The Ground/work artists probe issues of materiality, scale, form, and function, expressing themes and motifs core to their individual practices while exploring new conceptual and physical terrain. 

Experienced throughout the four seasons, Ground/work highlights the passage of time, bringing to the fore ideas of chance, transience, and transformation articulated in three dimensions. Offering an intimacy of encounter, the artists each generate new sculptural gestures that engage features of the Clark’s landscape to blur—or to bring into focus—boundaries between the familiar and the unknown.

Open to the public day and night, Ground/work provides unique access to artworks beyond the museum walls. Extending the connections between the ecosystem of Stone Hill, the Clark’s architecture, its revered permanent collection, and contemporary artistic practice, this exhibition expands upon the Clark’s commitment to create a place where visitors can experience remarkable works of art in a setting of profound natural beauty. The works are on view for a year.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website