KABOOM was a project for the Clark Art Institute at Williams College, produced by the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art for their exhibition EarMarks,which presented a group of site-specific sound art installations.
Originally, Alvin Curran and I were planning to propose a different piece for the EarMarks project. In late March I went to Williamstown to view a site behind the Clark Art Institute as well as look at other possible sites nearby. As MASS MoCA Director Joseph Thompson and I were walking uphill through the muddy woods to reach the cow pasture meadow on Stone Hill he related the perhaps apocryphal story of the Clark Art Institute's founding--how (during the Cold War 1950's) Mr. Clark, worried about an atomic attack, sought a safe location for his collection beyond the presumed urban danger zones; allegedly, he drew circles on a map around New York City and Boston representing the radii of a bomb's blast area and started to investigate places that fell outside those arcs of destruction. He ultimately chose Williamstown.
I was very intrigued by this bit of biographical information and wanted to
create a landscape that somehow commemorated the particular, albeit legendary context and inspiration for Mr. Clark's choice. A simple line across the meadow represents the radius of the bomb's destruction. KABOOM, written across the hillside in a gesture worthy of comic books, is an onomatopoetic complement to Alvin Curran's sound installation.
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