Hammer Highlights 2016: Installing Leap Before You Look

It was such a delight to install Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957. One of the best aspects about being part of an installation process is the intimate relationship we develop with the works. We unpack, examine, hold, and measure each work, and as such get a very tactile understanding of each thing we handle. How is it made? Is it heavy or light? What did the artist write on the back?

For this exhibition, each time we unpacked a crate we were greeted with such a sense of history. Interacting with these particular works—made with gentleness, curiosity, and care—reminded us of a quiet power and wonder art can provide. It was especially wonderful to reassemble the loom Anni Albers used at Black Mountain College. Here was an object used to create many other objects in the exhibition, and to work with it in a way Albers might have gave us a deeper understanding of that time and place, which we greatly appreciated.