On Saturday, May 8, "Yin/Yang Pavilion," a new work created by artist Dan Graham (above, right) for Simmons Hall, will be dedicated in a ceremony from 4 to 6 p.m. at the residence hall.
The ceremony will include remarks by President Charles M. Vest, Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody, Simmons Hall housemaster John Essigmann and LVAC director Jane Farver. A reception for the artist will follow.
The LVAC administers MIT's Percent-for-Art Program, which commissioned the Graham work. "Yin/Yang Pavilion" is made of concave and convex two-way mirrored glass--a material that creates constant fluctuations between transparency and reflection. The pavilion is activated by viewers who move through its curving spaces to experience anamorphic reflections of the sky, surrounding objects and landscape, and the superimposed images of other spectators.
"The observer becomes conscious of himself as a body, as a perceiving subject and of himself in relation to his group. This is the reversal of the usual 'loss of self' when a spectator looks at a conventional artwork," Graham said.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 5, 2004.
