The first signs of spring are appearing ahead of schedule at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where German conceptual artist Wolfgang Laib has carpeted the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium in a vibrant field of yellow pollen. The work, titled simply Pollen from Hazelnut, is a vast rectangle of powder sifted directly onto the floor by the artist using a small sieve. If this seems a tedious task, consider that Laib has been collecting the pollen for this particular work by hand in the small village where he lives and works in southern Germany since the mid-1990s.
It’s a procedure that requires monklike devotion, but one that Laib treasures. “I love this work,” he has said of the process. “It’s something which I do for hours and hours and days and days.” Laib has been creating simple, graphic artworks with all-natural ingredients (rice, beeswax, stone) for decades. This, his latest, is an uplifting burst of color in the midst of a still-gray city, and an optimistic reminder that a season of fresh new life is not far off.
Pollen from Hazelnut* is on view at MoMA through March 11; moma.org*
