IN THE BERKSHIRES, INSTALLING ART, BEARING THE CONSEQUENCES
VISITORS CAN GRAB A MAP AND FOLLOW THE TRAIL TO OUTDOOR SCULPTURES AT THE CLARK ART INSTITUTE. BUT BE READY FOR A SURREAL ENCOUNTER.
BY TED LOOS
VISUALS BY TONY CENICOLA
REPORTING FROM WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.
JULY 25, 2025
The meeting encapsulates the unpredictability and surprise of outdoor sculpture — both for makers and viewers — that the show’s curator, Glenn Adamson, wanted to harness for the show, which also features works by an international cast: Javier Senosiain, Yo Akiyama, Hugh Hayden, Milena Naef and Aboubakar Fofana.
“I love the idea of a surreal moment of encounter,” said Adamson, an independent art historian and curator who was formerly the director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. “Everything has an eerie magical feeling. Each work is on its own, it has no other art context in the line of sight, as if it had teleported there into the forest.”
The show is a follow-up to the first “Ground/work” at the Clark, which debuted in summer 2020 and garnered attention for being one of the rare museum shows viewable during the early phases of Covid.
The show ranges over a wide swath of the Clark’s 140-acre campus, and visitors can grab a special map and treat it like a treasure hunt, using the network of trails to find each piece.
Opened in 1955, the Clark is renowned for its collection of traditional American and European art. Last year, it announced a windfall in the form of a 331-work collection and a $45 million donation for a new building to house it all, courtesy of the collector Aso O. Tavitian, who died in 2020. The building, being designed by Selldorf Architects, is expected to open in 2028.
“Ground/work” announces itself to visitors with “Coata III,” by Senosiain, a Mexican architect. The colorful, Loch Ness-like creature emerges from Schow Pond on the campus and cuts a striking figure against the restrained white marble of the Clark’s original building. Covered in hand-cut glass mosaic tiles, it alludes to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god often depicted as a feathered serpent.
A half-mile away in a small clearing stands “Oscillation: Vertical Garden,” a stoneware work by Akiyama, a ceramist from Kyoto. It is shaped like an inverted cone and the dark brown piece’s rough, cracked surface will take on a rusty cast over time because of the iron powder embedded in it.
[Excerpt]
