ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This exhibition pairs new work by Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu, across parallel galleries, under the rubric of the meander, or self-avoiding line, as both noun and verb, motif and method. 

For Auerbach (b. 1981, San Francisco; lives and works in New York), this twisting line traces global traditions of ornament as much as waveforms in physics and space-filling curves in geometry. The artist’s restless experimentation in a range of media produces work that is as rigorous as it is visually arresting: calligraphic drawing, infrared imaging, and large-format painting are all part of Auerbach’s complex and expanding universe. 

For Agematsu (b. 1956, Kanagawa, Japan, lives and works in New York) and his practice of walking, collecting, and archiving, meander implies drift—both his own paths through the city and those of other people and things. Agematsu’s handheld sculptures are like small worlds, and the objects he finds—a foil wrapper, spent fireworks, a fishbone—interest him both aesthetically and anthropologically. Agematsu’s practice is both rhythmic and improvisational; his imperative is to keep moving.

In plainly different ways, both artists sharpen our perception of the flows of matter and energy around us, oscillating between intuition and analysis, difference and repetition, the quotidian and the cosmic. The exhibition publication, a special issue of the journal The Serving Library Annual, is themed on the meander more broadly, with contributors approaching it from archaeological, ecological, mathematical, narrative, neurological, and other perspectives.

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.