Assembly Required presents photographs, drawings, sculptures and paintings from the Studio Museum’s permanent collection that explore the ways in which certain works are dependent on site, and the viewer’s conceptual and perceptual experience of that locale through the artist’s intervention.

Taking Sam Gilliam (b. 1933)’s landmark painting Lion’s Rock Arc (1981) as inspiration, the exhibition includes a number of works comprised of multiple parts, such as the recent acquisition Anthology (William Pope L.) (2011) by 2005–06 Artist-in-Residence Clifford Owens (b. 1971).

This exhibition explores not only the importance of location and configuration, but the limits of artistic intention when a work is displayed.