Williamstown, Mass. - An installation by New York-based artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, untitled, 1997 (playtime), opens September 13 at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). The installation was originally commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art in 1997 for Projects 58, organized by Laura Hoptman, assistant curator, Department of Drawings.

Tiravanija's WCMA installation runs through February 1, 1998. It consists of a single structure, based on Philip Johnson's famous, 1949 Glass House, that fills an entire gallery and is intended as a space for viewer participation. This room-within-a-room will be the site of continual art-making activities and a variety of events for children and other visitors of all ages. Material for art projects will be available in the gallery, and the works created will become an integral component of Tiravanija's piece.

An internationally recognized conceptual artist, Rirkrit Tiravanija, born in 1961, is known for site-specific installations that invite and rely on the participation of visitors. He gained critical attention in the early 1990s with exhibitions in New York in which he set up portable stoves and fed Thai curry to gallery visitors. Building on 1960s conceptualism and 1970s performance art, these works exemplify Tiravanija's interest in art that evolves as visitors touch, eat, and converse with him and each other, thus creating the piece.

Tiravanija's work has been included in major international exhibitions, including the Venice and Sao Paolo Biennales, and in New York's Whitney Museum of American Art 1995 Biennial. He continues to show work in museums around the world, including the Kunstverein in Cologne, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, CAPC MusČe d'Art Contemporain in Bordeaux, and the summer of 1997 at Skulpturenproject in Munster, Germany.

This exhibition was organized by WCMA Director Linda Shearer with assistance from Ian Berry, curatorial intern. It is on loan to WCMA courtesy of Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York, and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Tiravanija's piece was installed at the museum in conjunction with the artist's participation in the upcoming symposium "Reimagining Museums for New Art," cosponsored by the Clark Art Institute and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). This day-long event will be held Saturday, September 27 at the Clark Art Institute.

Please contact WCMA's education department at (413) 597-2038 for information about activities occurring in conjunction with this exhibition. Reservations for school groups are welcome.