For Immediate Release
July 25, 2022
Digital Images Available Upon Request
CLARK ART INSTITUTE PRESENTS ARTIST’S TALK WITH TAUBA AUERBACH
(Williamstown, Massachusetts)— Tauba Auerbach, one of two artists featured in the Meander exhibition, shares stories from a winding path of research on the mathematician Giuseppe Peano. This free artist talk will be presented live in the Clark's auditorium on Sunday, August 7 at 2 pm. This program will also be broadcast simultaneously on Zoom. Advance registration for the Zoom transmission is required. Register at clarkart.edu/events.
The Peano curve is named for Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), an influential teacher who printed his own books, advocated for international languages, and was a committed feminist. The Penano curve describes a space-filling curve, or a line that, if folded infinitely in a particular fashion, passes through every point of a square. In their work PEANOPOEM I, Auerbach creates progressive iterations of that curve using the letters S and Z, a convention the artist often uses to symbolize opposite directions of rotation. Each cluster of nine letters is expanded in the grouping below, in which the letters S and Z form larger versions of themselves, creating a symmetry across scales that could continue indefinitely (and is mirrored across the fold of the page). Auerbach’s abstracted poem nods to early twentieth-century concrete poetry, in which the arrangement of linguistic elements conveys meaning, but is distinctive for its mathematical rigor. Auerbach’s monograph, Diagonal Press, published PEANOPOEM I at the time of the opening of the Meander exhibition.
ABOUT TAUBA AUERBACH
Tauba Auerbach studies patterns present at all scales in the universe in a practice that blends mathematics and science with art, design, and craft. In particular, Auerbach has focused on meandering lines and moves fluidly between varied media to interrogate their properties. As the artist has noted, these lines wind their way through human history and the natural world: known as meanders, frets, or keys, they appear in diverse ornamental traditions (ancient Mediterranean, Mesoamerican, and East Asian among them), but also as waveforms in physics, space-filling curves in geometry, and the helices of our DNA. Auerbach traces and transforms these lines in multiple dimensions; if they resonate with us, the artist believes, it might be at a fundamental, even cellular level.
Auerbach’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Astrup Fearnley Museum, and the Centre Pompidou, among others. The artist is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and STANDARD (Oslo), Norway. In 2021, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presented S v Z — a seventeen-year survey of Auerbach’s work.
Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu: Meander is on view in the Lunder Center at Stone Hill on the Clark Art Institute’s upper campus through October 16, 2022.
This exhibition is organized by the Clark Art Institute and curated by Robert Wiesenberger, curator of contemporary projects. Major funding for this exhibition is provided by Agnes Gund and Katherine and Frank Martucci, with additional support from Thomas and Lily Beischer, and Margaret and Richard Kronenberg.
ABOUT THE CLARK
The Clark Art Institute, located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, is one of a small number of institutions globally that is both an art museum and a center for research, critical discussion, and higher education in the visual arts. Opened in 1955, the Clark houses exceptional European and American paintings and sculpture, extensive collections of master prints and drawings, English silver, and early photography. Acting as convener through its Research and Academic Program, the Clark gathers an international community of scholars to participate in a lively program of conferences, colloquia, and workshops on topics of vital importance to the visual arts. The Clark library, consisting of more than 285,000 volumes, is one of the nation’s premier art history libraries. The Clark also houses and co-sponsors the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art.
The Clark, which has a three-star rating in the Michelin Green Guide, is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Its 140-acre campus includes miles of hiking and walking trails through woodlands and meadows, providing an exceptional experience of art in nature. Galleries are open 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday through Sunday, from September through June, and daily in July and August. Advance timed tickets are recommended. Admission is $20. Admission is also free on a year-round basis for Clark members, all visitors age twenty-one and under, and students with a valid student ID. Free admission is available through several programs, including First Sundays Free; a local library pass program; and EBT Card to Culture. For more information on these programs and more, visit clarkart.edu or call 413 458 2303.
Use of facemasks is optional for all visitors. For details on health and safety protocols, visit clarkart.edu/health.
Press contact: [email protected]