The Phillips’s first permanent installation since the Rothko Room (1960), the Laib Wax Room opens March 2, 2013. Wolfgang Laib, Wax Room (Where have you gone–where are you going?), 2013. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Photo: Lee Stalsworth
I have made beeswax chambers over the past twenty-five years or so, and more recently I have felt that I would not make them for temporary exhibitions, one after the other, but only if they could be permanent. A wax chamber is something like a house, anyway: You build a house and you don’t take it down. A wax chamber is also something that you could never explain, and it would be a pity to try to do so, because it’s so simple and also very complex.
Wolfgang Laib, Artforum.com
I have met Wolfang Leib at the Café, at the Phillips Collection, maybe in his lunch brake, while working in this fantastic beeswax chamber. He, who did not know me, has transmited to me, in his kind and sensitive way to approach my words, what he wants to say in this artwork. It is beyond words, it is a fact, it simpy IS.
Thank you W.L.