Clark Art to Host 'Meander' Artist on Final Day of Exhibit

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Yuji Agematsu, one of two artists featured in the Clark Art Institute's exhibition "Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu: Meander," holds a conversation with "Meander" curator Robert Wiesenberger on the final day of the exhibition, Sunday, Oct. 16.

The free event takes place at 5 p.m. at the Lunder Center at Stone Hill. The discussion explores Agematsu's long-running practice of walking, collecting, and archiving as part of his artistic practice. Yuji Agematsu (born 1956, Kanagawa, Japan, lives and works in New York) has, since the 1980s, taken daily, wandering walks through New York City, collecting small objects from the street as he goes.

The materials he collects on these walks form the contents of pocket-sized sculptures he creates inside cellophane cigarette packaging. He is interested in the metabolism of the city and the habits and desires of its residents. The artist, who refers to his finds as detritus — "trash," he believes, is too disparaging — sees New York as a place of profound pluralism and extends this same courtesy to things. Agematsu's practice is both rhythmic and improvisational, like that of his longtime mentor, the free jazz and visual and martial artist Milford Graves (1941–2021); his imperative is to keep moving.

Agematsu has presented solo exhibitions at the Secession, Vienna (2021), Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius, 2019), Lulu (Mexico City, 2019), the Power Station (Dallas, 2018), Artspeak (Vancouver, 2014), and Real Fine Arts (Brooklyn, 2012 and 2014). He appeared prominently in the group exhibitions Greater New York at MoMA PS1 (New York, 2021) and in 57th Carnegie International (Pittsburgh, 2018). He has mounted projects or performances in New York at the Swiss Institute, Artists Space, and the Whitney Museum.

"Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu: Meander" pairs new work by Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu across parallel galleries under the rubric of the meander, as both noun and verb, motif and method. For Auerbach, this twisting, self-avoiding line traces global traditions of ornament as much as physical waveforms and space-filling curves in geometry. For Agematsu, meander implies drift — both his own paths through New York City and those of other people and things. In plainly different ways, both artists study the rules that govern flows of matter and energy in the universe, between chaos and order, intuition and analysis, the minute and the massive.

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.  

Free; no registration is required. Refreshments and extended gallery hours offered. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events.

Williamstown Volunteer of the Year Speaks for the Voiceless

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:48AM / Sunday, May 26, 2024

Andi Bryant was presented the annual Community Service Award. 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Inclusion was a big topic at Thursday's annual town meeting — and not just because of arguments about the inclusivity of the Progress Pride flag.

 

The winner of this year's Scarborough-Salomon-Flynt Community Service Award had some thoughts about how exclusive the town has been and is.

 

"I want to talk about the financially downtrodden, the poor folk, the deprived, the indigent, the impoverished, the lower class," Andi Bryant said at the outset of the meeting. "I owe it to my mother to say something — a woman who taught me it was possible to make a meal out of almost nothing.

 

"I owe it to my dad to say something, a man who loved this town more than anyone I ever knew. A man who knew everyone, but almost no one knew what it was like for him. As he himself said, 'He didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.' "

 

Bryant was recognized by the Scarborough-Salomon-Flynt Committee as the organizer and manager of Remedy Hall, a new non-profit dedicated to providing daily necessities — everything from wheelchairs to plates to toothpaste — for those in need.

 

She started the non-profit in space at First Congregational Church where people can come and receive items, no questions asked, and learn about other services that are available in the community.

 

She told the town meeting members that people in difficult financial situations do, in fact, exist in Williamstown, despite the perceptions of many in and out of the town.