Photograph of Philip Haas, a light-skinned man wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and white coveralls. In his hand is a white plaster death mask. On his head is a white sculpture with a second mask blowing into a Seussian horn interspersed with paintbrushes with red paint on their bristles.

Philip Haas Sculpture Breathes Life into Painting & Music

Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Gallery

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The JSMA is excited to present the world-premiere of noted artist Philip Haas’s new work, before it embarks on a year-long tour in the U.S. and abroad. The two-week performance installation incorporates motorized sculpture, construction, totems, altered found objects, film, fetishized costume, movement, sound, spoken word, and music.

The defining physical element of the performance is a life-size sculpture representing the arts of painting, music and sculpture, which, during part of the presentation, the artist will wear.

Each morning, over the course of the two weeks, the event will start with the various elements – sculpture table, easel, musical instruments, objects – arranged throughout the gallery. Sound, music and video will be running concurrently. Haas will enter and fit the sculpture to his body, delivering a commentary, while the audience is encouraged to move around the sculpture.

Philip Haas, in marrying sculpture, painting, film, and architecture, has created a contemporary visual vocabulary all his own. He describes his process as “sculpting by thinking.” Haas’s groundbreaking artwork has been featured in museums, including the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), the Dulwich Picture Gallery (United Kingdom) and the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris). In the public realm, his work has been exhibited in the Piazza del Duomo (Milan) and the Gardens of Versailles (France). Haas is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as other awards. His feature film, Angels & Insects, was nominated for the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and an Academy Award. He has taught in the visual arts program at Princeton University.