OPEN, was an installation of lights and projections by artist Robin Bell, was a celebration of transparency, belonging and accessibility.

Reflecting on the cancellation of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Corcoran some thirty years ago, Bell intended for OPEN to serve a counterpoint to decisions regarding censorship, erasure and closure.

OPEN was a prelude to 6.13.89, an exhibition that opens in 2019 and examines the climate that led to the Corcoran Gallery of Art cancelling the Mapplethorpe retrospective. According to Bell, the decision to be open is not accidental or neutral. When you ask the public to be open, you are asking them to do more work—to not proceed as normal but to reexamine, to rethink.

OPEN is a goal: open borders, open thought, open dialogue. Through OPEN, Bell will debut site-specific works that takes into account the physical location of the Corcoran across from the White House, the cultural nexus in which the Corcoran exists, and the fundamental rights born in the First Amendment.