Wolfgang Laib’s Pollen from Hazelnut will inhabit the Museum’s
Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, infusing the space
with a yellow luminosity. Laib perceives the Marron Atrium as
the Museum’s inner sanctum, its womb, and has created this work
especially for the site. It will be the artist’s largest pollen
installation to date, measuring approximately 18 x 21 feet. The
hazelnut pollen that will be used in MoMA’s installation has
been collected by Laib from the natural environment around his
home and studio, in a small village in southern Germany, since
the mid-1990s. Since the mid-1970s, Laib (German, b. 1950) has
been producing sculptures and installations marked by a serene
presence and a reductive beauty. These works are often made from
one or a combination of two materials, accumulated from natural
elements—such as milk, marble, pollen, rice, and beeswax—which
have been selected for their purity and symbolic associations.
Forging a singular path for more than 30 years, Laib amplifies
the intrinsic m