Wonder

. Reveals wonder as fundamental in our quest to establish who we are, and to grasp the universe beyond. Wonder celebrates the reopening of the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery following a major renovation. Nine major contemporary artists, including Maya Lin, Tara Donovan, Leo Villareal, Patrick Dougherty, and Janet Echelman, were invited to take over the Renwick's galleries, transforming the whole of the museum into an immersive cabinet of wonders. Mundane materials such as index cards, marbles, sticks, and thread are conjured into strange new worlds that demonstrate the qualities uniting these artists: sensitivity to site, a passion for making and materiality, and a desire to provoke awe. A wide-ranging essay by Nicholas R. Bell connects these artworks to wonder's role throughout Western culture, to the question of how museums have evolved as places to encounter wondrous things, and to the symbolic weight of the moment as this building is "dedicated to art" for the third instance in three centuries. "It is of no small consequence," writes Bell, "that we, as a public, commit to the perpetuation of spaces that harbour the potential for subjective and intensive encounters with art." Contents: Foreword by Elizabeth Broun; Pillows of Air by Lawrence Weschler; On Wonder by Nicholas R. Bell; The Encounter, A Sense of Wonder, The Shuffle of Things, Mr. Corcoran's Museum, Exhibition, You Are Here; Notes; Plates; Checklist of the Exhibition; Exhibition Floor Plan; Acknowledgments AUTHOR: Nicholas R. Bell is The Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is author of many books including Untitled: 'The Art of James Castle' (2014) and is editor of Nation Building: Craft and Contemporary American Culture (2015). Lawrence Weschler, former New Yorker staff writer and director emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, is the author of more than fifteen books of nonfiction. Titles include 'Uncanny Valley and Other Adventures in the Narrative' (2011) and 'Is