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Image of Passacaglia

Ann Preston

American, b. 1942

Passacaglia
2007

Steel, plaster, and acrylic
240 x 444 x 66 in. (609.6 x 1127.76 x 167.64 cm)
Gift of the Manon Caine Russell Foundation, the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation, and the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation
2007.68

A "passacaglia" was a baroque musical form. It was usually a work of a serious nature composed of a series of variations over a persistent, repetitive base. The substructure of the artwork, "Passacaglia" is analogous.
– Ann Preston

Ann Preston’s Passacaglia is a monumental site-specific sculpture that adorns the interior of the Wanlass/Russell Performance Hall started at the wall and continuing to the floor and outside to the plaza. Preston collaborated with the building’s architects, the Boston-based Sasaki Associates, Inc., to integrate this sculpture into the architecture. She generated its unique geometric design of repeating tetrahedral shapes from a mathematical formula, thereby paying homage to the formulations of music composition. Music also informed the title of the sculpture, Passacaglia, which refers to an instrumental composition with continuous variations over a ground bass. Here, Preston applies the term to create a sculpture representing harmony and melody to the eye.

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