If it seems that some sort of disaster has taken place here, it has, at least in the view of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, where the warehouse serves as its biggest exhibition space. The pieces make up an immense art installation that was supposed to open last December, created by Christoph Büchel, a Swiss artist known for building elaborate, politically provocative environments for viewers to wander, and sometimes to crawl, through.

But after work began last fall on this installation, one of his most ambitious, it became increasingly more complex under Mr. Büchel’s direction; the $160,000 budget doubled; and relations between the artist and the museum degenerated into an angry standoff, according to Joseph C. Thompson, the museum’s director. Now, after months of frustration, the museum has decided to take an extraordinary step: On Saturday it will open the doors to the show anyway, without Mr. Büchel’s permission or cooperation.

¶ 8:34 PM