Author Archives: Experiment Station

Go Team!

Posted on by

Joe Holbach, Trish Waters, Bill Koberg, and Renée Maurer in their hotel lobby where a banner for our exhibition is on display. Photo: Sue Frank

Today is the big opening for our exhibition in Daejeon, Korea, Conversations: Impressionist and Modern Master Works from The Phillips Collection. Two years in the making, this show furthers our relationship with notable museums in Asia and the citizens of those countries who have seen our works in loan and traveling exhibitions in the past. This unusually large team—chief registrar and director of special initiatives Joe Holbach, associate registrar for exhibitions Trish Waters, installations manager Bill Koberg, assistant curator Renée Maurer, and associate curator for research Sue Frank—is representative of the size and complexity of this installation. Joe reports, “Highly energetic opening tonight.” (Which technically was yesterday for them.)

Summer: Black River Valley

Posted on by

John Marin, Black River Valley, 1913, Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper 15 1/2 x 18 3/4 in.; 39.37 x 47.625 cm.. Acquired 1926.

During summer 1913, John Marin spent the summer along the Black River in Castorland, New York, near the Adirondacks, painting the local landscape of the river valley and surrounding mountains including Black River Valley. His paintings during that summer were full of bright, luminous color, which Marin exaggerated with watercolor paint. Marin typically dated his paintings only by year, not by month or season, but his Castorland paintings are recognizable by a blue, green, and pale yellow summery palette. He used his penchant for transparent color, loose and fluid technique, admiration for cubism, and mastery of watercolor paint to create a beautifully abstracted image of the rolling hills and deep river valley, conveying the warmth of a summer day.

This work is currently on view in Made in the U.S.A.

A Different Experience of Space

Posted on by

In this video, Intersections artist Vesna Pavlović discusses her recently installed work at the Phillips, Illuminated Archive. “In any typical museum setting, we’re used to seeing artworks on walls,” says Pavlović. “One of the pieces in the show is a 35-foot long sheer curtain with digitally transferred black and white imagery, which offers a different experience of space.”