Yale students celebrate the reopening of the Gallery's main building, designed in 1953 by American architect Louis Kahn and restored in 2004-6, with this special exhibition of works from the collection. Responding to Kahn: A Sculptural Conversation highlights the restored building and the relationship between modern art and architecture, with particular emphasis on postwar sculpture. The curatorial team of students, who represent a range of disciplines, organized all aspects of the exhibition, from the selection of objects to the installation design, interpretive materials, and accompanying catalogue.

Sound/Body/Weapon evokes memories of the Second World War, in which gas masks were common and readily available in the event of a poison-gas attack. Suspended in space, this multipart suit emphasizes the absent body that would have once filled it, and the cassette tapes, all blank, commnet on the inability to retrieve such personal histories. The work is one of Vito Acconci's explorations involving clothing that an imagined person could wear.

In spite of the Kahn building's completion in 1953, it is often forgotten that it is a product of postwar America; the timeless quietude of the building belies the tumultuous environment that it arose from. Sound/Body/Weapon references this past. As if recycling fear, the work is relevant even today, evoking the threat of biological and chemical weapons in the age of yet another war.
Catherine Sellers, gallery handout