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INSTALLATION ART
Laib, Wolfgang
Germany (1950 - )
Pollen from Hazelnut
1995 - 1996
Hazelnut pollen
70 7/8 x 74 3/4 in. (180 x 189.9 cm) installed size
Gift of William and Ruth True with additional funds from Rebecca and Alexander Stewart and the Henry Gallery Association Collections Committee
FA 2002.2.1-7

Wolfgang Laib’s Pollen from Hazelnut appears as a glowing rectangle against the smooth expanse of the gallery floor. The material facts about this piece are replete with meaning. The material is as specified in the title, pollen granules gathered by hand from hazelnut bushes in the fields near the studio of the artist, who continues to live and work in the small village region of his childhood, in southern Germany. Laib devotes considerable time in season to gathering pollen of the dandelion, the hazelnut, the pine trees, and occasionally others, such as buttercup, sorrel, beech or alder.

Hazelnut pollen is coarse enough to allow a close viewer to perceive distinct granules, fine enough to provide the cloudlike layer that is Pollen from Hazelnut in the Henry Art Gallery’s collection. Although the slightest cognitive exercise makes it clear this is a layer of powder on a flat, painted surface, the object looks like a fluffy glimpse into another dimension, deep enough to fall into and never be seen again. At the same time, or with a minute shift of perception, it floats like a vision.

The form of this installation is a thin layer of sifted pollen lying directly on the floor. The artist not only specified the approximate dimensions of this configuration but also its ground. Absent concrete flooring, which would make an acceptable background, the institution constructs a drywall or plywood surface, finishes it carefully, and paints is a smooth gray deck paint… The installations are always rectangular, slightly wider than they are deep, with edges careful but slightly feathered rather than precise.

Laib’s magisterial retrospective, presented at the Henry Art Gallery in 2001, established for many in the museum’s audience another model of art that makes a palpable difference in people’s lives. The power of particular materials found in nature, lucid and carefully thought out installations, and associations drawn from convictions as well as encyclopedic knowledge of world belief systems created a charged exhibition that worked, effectively, even magically, on the viewer. Pollen from Hazelnut was purchased at the close of the exhibition, selected because it encapsulated as well as commemorated the ineffable impact of that experience.

-- Label copy for Pollen and Paint: Laib, Homer, and the Natural World, February 11 to May 6, 2012. Copy adapted from WOW: The Work of the Work, 2005.

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