WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu: Meander, opening July 16, 2022 at the Clark Art Institute, presents an exhibition pairing new works by the two New York-based artists. The exhibition continues through October 16, 2022. 

Presented in parallel galleries in the Lunder Center at Stone Hill on the Clark’s upper campus, the exhibition features two distinct—but complementary—artistic practices united by the notion of the meander, a self-avoiding line, as both motif and method. 

“Yuji Agematsu and Tauba Auerbach are both vibrant and compelling artists, but in very different ways,” said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. “This exhibition looks at their work independently but challenges the viewer to follow the lines that connect them. Working on dissimilar scales and with varied materials, both artists imbue their art with minute detail while addressing big, cosmic questions.”

For Auerbach (b. 1981, San Francisco; lives and works in New York), the twisting, self-avoiding line of the meander 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 distinctive ways, both artists study the flows of matter and energy around us, oscillating between intuition and analysis, entropy and order, difference and repetition, and a vast range of scales. 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. 

“The meander is a classical ornamental form with global roots, but it is also a way of thinking and moving that yields rich artistic results,” said Robert Wiesenberger, curator of contemporary projects. “Seeing Auerbach and Agematsu side-by-side lets visitors appreciate two artists’ contrasting approaches to some common questions.”

For more information, visit clarkart.edu or call 413 458 2303.

Use of facemasks is optional for all visitors. For details on health and safety protocols, visit clarkart.edu/health.