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Until then, Mr. Laib had concentrated on pieces that could easily tour.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room
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The German-born Mr. Laib has been creating beeswax chambers small spaces lined with beeswax, gently lighted by a single hanging bulb for more than 25 years.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room
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The aroma of the beeswax is "totally seductive, " Ms. Kosinski says, employing the kind of sensual language most often used to describe Mr. Laib's chambers.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room
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Mr. Laib's installations involving other natural substances, such as pollen and rice, as well as beeswax have been displayed at prominent museums and galleries around the world, including New York's Museum of Modern Art.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room
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Two years ago, while participating in the museum's "Conversations With Artists" series, Mr. Laib stepped into the Rothko Room for the first time and was transported by "a very emotional, deep feeling, " he says.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room
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And the pervasive feeling in-house is that the new arrival a beeswax chamber designed by conceptual artist Wolfgang Laib, opening Saturday couldn't be more true to the vision of Duncan Phillips (1886-1966) when he opened his private collection to the public in 1921.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room
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The spaces offer room for perhaps two people comfortably but are said to be best visited alone. (The room at the Phillips, a former storage closet, is 6 feet wide by 7 feet deep and 10 feet high.) "There's a feeling you get inside the space that can't really described, " says Mr. Laib, a diminutive, almost fragile-looking man with a voice barely above a whisper.
WSJ: A Collaboration of Bees and Man: The Phillips Collection at the Laib Wax Room