Installing Acts of Silence

Of her installation at the Phillips, Acts of Silence, and how it speaks to the work by Morris Graves on view in the same galleries, Helen Frederick says: “Much of this came from traveling to California, where for the first time I saw the redwoods; and just the evolution of the plant life and the bird life, and those great massive trees and the shadows cast by the trees . . . the muffled sounds from the ocean . . . [these] allow me to understand why Morris Graves found this environment where he wanted to be for the last years of his life.”

Behind-the-Scenes: Installing Gauguin to Picasso

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Paul Gauguin’s NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry?) gets an inspection before hanging in in the Phillips’s galleries. Photo: Renee Maurer

Phillips Curator Renee Maurer and Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters snapped photos as Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland, The Staechelin & Im Obersteg Collections was installed early last month.

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Installing Paul Gauguin’s NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry?). Photo: Renee Maurer

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(left) Installing works by Alexej von Jawlensky. Photo: Renee Maurer (right) Curator Renee Maurer with Chaim Soutine’s Child with a Toy. Photo: Trish Waters

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Installing works by Alexej von Jawlensky. Photo: Renee Maurer

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(left) The installation team with Pablo Picasso’s The Absinthe Drinker [verso: Woman at the Theater]. Photo: Trish Waters (right) Putting the finishing touches on a frame. Photo: Trish Waters

Hanging Man Ray’s Obstruction

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Preparators install Man Ray’s Obstruction (1920/editioned replica 1964). Photos: Trish Waters

Installing Man Ray’s Obstruction, a carefully balanced mobile comprising over 60 wooden coat hangers, was no small feat for Phillips preparators. Check out these before and after shots.

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Installation view: Man Ray, Obstruction, 1920/editioned replica 1964. Assisted readymade: 63 wooden coat hangers, 43 5/16 x 47 1/4 x 47 1/4 in. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Gift of Beatrice (Buddy) Mayer, Chicago, to American Friends of the Israel Museum, B84.0027. © Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem by Avshalom Avital.