Watch the Museum’s team install Kiki Smith’s Constellation in the Special Projects Gallery of the new Contemporary Art + Design Wing, opening this Friday.
Constellation is an installation based on the night sky. The circular field of leaves of handmade Nepal paper, dyed indigo, is the backdrop for a collection of hot-sculpted glass animals, cast glass stars, and hundreds of cast bronze pellets imitating animal scat. The glass animals refer to 26 constellations. These include well-known star patterns—such as Ursa Major and Minor (Greater and Little Bear), Scorpius (the scorpion), Aries (the ram), and Cancer (the crab)—and lesser-known star patterns, such as Corvus (the crow), Lacerta (the lizard), and Delphinus (the dolphin).