Felix Gonzalez-Torres's "Untitled (Placebo - Landscape - for Roni)" is up through Jan. 4 at Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.
(Shiloh cinquemani)
Light and heavy
With "Projections," Jenny Holzer offers a brilliant, hypnotic installation at Mass MoCA. Her first interior light projections in the United States bring waves of text that sweep through giant Building 5, enveloping viewers who can recline in large beanbag chairs on the floor. It's a magical experience, and it's sobering to pass into the nearby small galleries where Holzer has mounted recent silkscreen paintings depicting formerly classified US government documents related to the war in Iraq. Each body of work is lean and visceral. One fills an empty space with light and poetry. The other is a punch in the gut. Through October 2008. 413-662-2111, massmoca.org
A sweet gesture
Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts has mounted one of the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres's signature works. "Untitled (Placebo - Landscape - for Roni)" is a sumptuous carpet of hard candy spilling over the concrete floor, warming the modernist chill of the Le Corbusier building. Each candy is wrapped in gold cellophane, and visitors are invited to take a piece to eat. Though the work recalls the Eucharist, the Cuban-born artist was not making any messianic claims. His sharing gesture is full of tenderness: It's literally sweet, and the dwindling candy references his own body and how fleeting life is. Through Jan. 4. 617-495-3251, ves.fas.harvard.edu
- Cate McQuaid
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
