Retracings
(1999),
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
The interior space of the High Museum, designed by architect
Richard Meier, is defined by a ramp spiraling up from the first floor to the top of the
building. Walking up or down this ramp, the viewer encountered different phases of
Retracings on the building’s several levels. Looking at the images in the smaller,
single windows on the fourth floor was much like looking at paintings in a gallery and
provided a similar sort of intimacy between viewer and work. The monumentally-scaled
images on the multi-paned windows of the second and third floors offered an entirely
different experience of intimacy. The viewer would first glimpse the radiance of
colored light that splashed through the windows onto the floor. Because the dimensions of
the galleries prevented the viewer from stepping back and seeing the entirety of these
images, the experience was that of walking into and being enveloped by the work. The
images on the second and third floor windows could be seen in their entirety from the
outside at night, illuminated from inside the museum. Seen from this vantage point, they
formed one continuous, luminous composition across the expanse of the building’s
front.
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