Collaborative Exhibition in Art and the Public Domain
March 21–May 17, 2011
www.thedivinecomedy.orgwww.gsd.harvard.eduwww.harvardartmuseums.org
The Divine ComedyOlafur Eliasson
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Public hours: Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm; Saturday and Sunday, noon–4pm
Olafur Eliasson’s contribution, Three to now, engages the tacit forms of experience and understanding that underlie both scientific theorization and our knowledge of the exterior world. This installation at the Graduate School of Design consists of 55 technical instruments, machines, and other objects that challenge or subvert the trusted and familiar routines of perception by which we order our comprehension of the physical world.
Tomás Saraceno
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Terrace, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Public hours: Monday–Friday, 10am–5pm; Saturday and Sunday, 1–5pm
Tomás Saraceno is widely known for his rethinking of urban geography and its potential migration into the physical and political atmosphere over our heads. His inflatable sculpture, Cloud City—part planet, part vehicle, and by definition humanly inhabitable— is embedded with solar technology and sensors that record and interact with aspects of the wider environment.
Ai Weiwei
Northwest Science Building, B1 Level, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Public hours: Monday–Friday, 7am–10pm
Ai Weiwei’s installation, Untitled (2011), memorializes the thousands of schoolchildren who died as a result of the major earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province in May 2008. A site-specific work of 5,335 identical school backpacks represents the exact number of children who died during the earthquake and in the subsequent collapses of poorly constructed school buildings. A related sound piece by the dissident artist, a voice recording reciting the names of the victims, titled Remembrance (2010), will play in the space. The counting of the student earthquake victims and collection of details about their deaths are the products of a “citizens’ investigation” conducted by Weiwei and his studio.
This exhibition is made possible by the Graham Gund Exhibition Fund, held jointly by the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Art Museums.
For more information, visit www.thedivinecomedy.org.