This installation, created with over 1,350 yards of translucent nylon fabric inflated by the building’s HVAC system and additional mechanized fans, alters and completely transforms the 3,000 square foot gallery space as it navigates viewers through an unique interior garden environment. For this installation, Boroson is inspired by a variety of sources including the architectural plans of the Artspace, systems of city planning and landscape design such as the urban parks and boulevards found throughout Kansas City, and historical characteristics of Italian renaissance garden design. Overlaying designs and plans for the gallery with elements of garden design, Boroson combines these ideas to envision and create an interior garden setting that responds and interacts directly with the distinguishing features of the architectural space.

Lee Boroson: Windowbox invites viewers to experience and imagine the spatial environment in a new way, focusing attention on the space. During the 1980s and 1990s, installation and site-specific work had slipped into the mainstream of contemporary art. In the early 2000s, a new generation of artists were continuing to experiment with the unique conditions of three-dimensional form and space, revisiting and further exploring the challenges that have been the ground of exploration for much contemporary art from minimal art and post-minimal sculpture to postmodern art, regardless of discipline.

Lee Boroson

Lee Boroson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He has created installations and shown his work in numerous solo exhibitions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York, NY; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; and the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Arts Center, New York, NY. Boroson’s work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions including the Biennial for Public Art, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; Momenta Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; Sculpture Center, New York, NY;  Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn, NY; and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY, among others. Boroson received his M.F.A. from Indiana University in 1989 and that same year attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Lee Boroson: Windowbox is curated by Raechell Smith, Director of the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute.

This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and Grand Arts. We would also like to express our appreciation to Katie Martin, Bill Gerrow/ Performance Textiles, Tom Knittel/BNIM Architects; Mark Suede/Airtech Engineering, Sara Hertenstein, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Kirsten Hassenfeld, Heather Lustfeldt, Jeremie Hoffman, Wilfredo Codilla, Derric Eady, Andrea Hickerson, Sara Nelson, Bob George, and Richard Brown for their support in realizing this project. All photographs by mstudios/Mcfarland Photography.