Sketches by William Pope.L for Yard Reinvention at Hauser & Wirth New York in 2009.
“Titled ‘YARD (To Harrow),’ William Pope.L’s reinvention of Yard will be constructed within the walls of Hauser & Wirth New York on the Upper East Side, building upon the literal and symbolic blackness of the original 1961 work’s defining rubber tires and tarpaper forms. “What struck me in looking at the first version of Yard was Kaprow’s playful impetus,” Pope.L explains. “His invitation for people to touch the tires, move them around, climb into them was an end in itself, art for art’s sake, essentially upbeat. I’m looking at the more harrowing side of the work, the unsaid, unmentioned and less decipherable aspects that are embedded within it but felt. The black rubber, for example, and its industrial legacy, its smell, its density, its effect upon the eco-system, and the associations these things provoke, all resonate in the world we know today. I’m interested in what materials call up from life.””
