Max Zorn’s Participation in Hill-Stead Museum’s “Arethusa Collection” Exhibition (2024)

 

The Arethusa Collection Exhibition at Hill-Stead Museum (2024–2025)

In late 2024, Connecticut’s Hill-Stead Museum opened a special exhibition titled “The Arethusa Collection: From Italian Renaissance to Contemporary British Art.” This exhibition showcased the diverse art collection of Tony Yurgaitis (owner of Arethusa Farm in Litchfield) and ran from November 16, 2024 through spring 2025 (ctexamine). The show spanned centuries of art , “from Renaissance Madonnas to contemporary paintings, Picasso ceramics to Murano glass, and folkloric weathervanes to Danish Flora Danica,” reflecting the breadth of Yurgaitis’s lifelong collecting efforts. The Arethusa Collection installation was on view in Hill-Stead’s galleries through April 27, 2025, integrating Yurgaitis’s artworks into the historic setting of the museum (Hillstead.org).

Max Zorn’s Contribution: Tape Art in a British Phone Booth

Among the contemporary works featured was art by Dutch-German tape artist Max Zorn (*1987), who participated in the Arethusa Collection exhibition with a distinctive installation. Notably, one of Zorn’s pieces was presented within a classic British telephone booth frame,  three artworks made entirely from layers of packing tape and backlighting, fitted into an iconic red English phone booth. Hill-Stead Museum’s official social media described this piece with a sense of surprise: “1. It’s packing tape! 2. No, it’s an English phone booth! 3. No, it’s an artwork by Dutch-German artist Max Zorn (b. 1987) made for the Arethusa Collection and now on view at Hill-Stead”. In other words, The illuminated tape art creation by Zorn was specially commissioned for Yurgaitis’s Arethusa Collection and installed on-site as part of the exhibition, blending a modern urban art medium with  classic British cultural icons.