Coinciding with the 65th anniversary of the Glass House and its 2014 tour season, the Glass House will present “Fujiko Nakaya: Veil,” the first site-specific artist project to engage the iconic Glass House itself, designed by Philip Johnson and completed in 1949. Fujiko Nakaya, a Japanese artist who has produced fog sculptures and environments internationally, will wrap the Glass House in a veil of dense mist that comes and goes. For approximately 10 minutes each hour, the Glass House will appear to vanish, only to return as the fog dissipates. Inside the structure, the sense of being outdoors will be temporarily suspended during the misty spells.
“Veil” will stage a potent dialogue with the Glass House, producing an opaque atmosphere to meet the building”™s extreme transparency. This installation is part of a greater initiative to transform the Glass House campus into a center for contemporary art and ideas, in particular those that foster new interpretations of the historic site”™s meanings. Fujiko Nakaya has created fog installations around the world, including projects for the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; the Grand Palais, Paris; the Australian National Gallery, Canberra; and the Exploratorium, San Francisco, among others. This will be her first large-scale installation on the East Coast of the U.S.
The Glass House, built between 1949 and 1995 by architect Philip Johnson, is a National Trust Historic Site. The site comprises fourteen structures and also features a permanent collection of 20th-century painting and sculpture. The tour season runs from May to November and advance reservations are required. For more information, visit theglasshouse.org.
