The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. will unveil its first permanent installation in over 50 years. Founded by the art collector and critic Duncan Phillips (1886-1966) in 1921, the Phillips Collection is the United States’ first modern art museum.
The new addition to the institution is a room made entirely from beeswax titled Wax Room. The experimental piece is the work of Wolfgang Laib (b. 1950), a conceptual German artist who is well known for his sculptural works made from natural materials. Laib has been making his beeswax chambers for over 25 years using hundreds of pounds of melted beeswax to coat walls and ceilings. The otherworldly spaces he creates are warmly lit by single hanging light bulbs.
The Phillips Collection’s other permanent installation is its Rothko Room, which holds four paintings by the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The intimate presentation of Rothko’s works was added as a permanent exhibit in 1960, six years before Duncan Phillips’ death. Phillips worked closely with Rothko, deciding which walls to hang each painting on and the kind of lighting and furniture that would best suit the room. The Phillips Collection was the first American museum to dedicate a space to Rothko’s work and it remains the only one designed in collaboration with the artist himself.
Laib’s progressive work is a welcomed addition to the Phillips Collection. While Phillips’ holdings consisted of many Impressionist paintings and other mainstream works, he also had a taste for the unconventional. Phillips was one of the earliest patrons of American modernists including John Marin (1870-1953) and Arthur Dove (1880-1946) and also harbored great admiration for Abstract Expressionism before it became a respected art movement.
Laib’s Wax Room will be unveiled on March 2, 2013.
