MASS MoCA announces the installation of Taryn Simon’s large-scale outdoor sculpture, The Pipes, which will be on long-term view on the museum’s campus starting June 26, 2021. What began as an oversized concrete instrument for a cacophony of global mourning in Simon’s work An Occupation of Loss (Park Avenue Armory, 2016) will be populated by the sounds, collective call and response, and movements of a living public. The 11 structures that make up the installation – which Simon originally designed in collaboration with Shohei Shigematsu of architecture firm OMA – are modular, and have been adapted by Simon and Shigematsu for the MASS MoCA campus.
The Pipes joins MASS MoCA’s growing constellation of long-term outdoor artworks sited throughout the museum’s campus and downtown North Adams, including works by Jenny Holzer, Martin Puryear, James Turrell, and Franz West. This will be Simon’s second project at MASS MoCA, following her acclaimed 2018 solo exhibition A Cold Hole + Assembled Audience.
The installation of Taryn Simon’s The Pipes at MASS MoCA is made possible in part by the Michael G. and C. Jane Wilson 2007 Trust, Gagosian Gallery, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, and David Zicarelli and Virginia Troyer.