WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute announces its second outdoor sculpture exhibition, Ground/work 2025, opening in summer 2025. 

 

Set throughout the woodland trails and open meadows of the Clark's distinctive 140-acre campus, the exhibition includes newly commissioned, site-specific installations by six leading contemporary artists.

 

According to a press release: 

 

Curated by independent art historian Glenn Adamson, Ground/work 2025 features a dynamic range of outdoor presentations by international artists, Y? Akiyama, Laura Ellen Bacon, Aboubakar Fofana, Hugh Hayden, Milena Naef, and Javier Senosiain that respond to the Clark's unique setting while expressing ideas core to each artist's individual practice. Like the inaugural Ground/work, which opened in summer 2020, the installations will remain on view for over one year allowing visitors to encounter the works day or night and throughout the seasons, experiencing them anew as the landscape and weather conditions change. Ground/work 2025 closes in October 2026.

 

"When we first considered doing our initial Ground/work exhibition, we always hoped that the public's response would inspire future iterations of the project," said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. "The enthusiastic embrace of this concept was immediate and intense when we opened the exhibition in 2020 and the public's interest in and enthusiasm for another Ground/work project has been constant. We eagerly await the opportunity to bring this new presentation to life and to experience our grounds through the eyes of this new cohort of artists. Glenn Adamson, our guest curator, has invited artists whose work will be particularly responsive to the natural setting here at the Clark and we are confident that our visitors will be delighted by the works of art that are planned."

 

Glenn Adamson is an American curator, author, and art historian whose work focuses on the intersections of contemporary art, design, and craft, which he defines as "skilled making, on a human scale."

 

"The monumentality of this project, and its global range of artists, definitely make it a milestone in the institutional presentation of craft," Adamson says. "At the same time, I love the radical accessibility of it—the fact that it can be seen by anyone, free of charge, at any time of the day. Imagine a group of kids walking through the woods and suddenly coming upon one of these huge sculptures, a strange and beautiful presence in a clearing, and then learning how was made. How magical is that?"