Tara Donovan On “Fieldwork” @ the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver CO
Brenda Nesbitt
“I had the idea of using toothpicks to make something, but got tired of opening all the little boxes and ending up spilling a big box of toothpicks on the floor. For whatever reason I kind of lifted up the whole stack and made a chance discovery that the toothpicks could hold a perfect corner. That discovery became a pretty strong launching point for me — it suggested a language.”
Tara Donovan, Calder and MacArthur Genius award-winning artist
Since the mid-90s, Donovan has been looking for everyday objects that intrigue her while asking how that object could transcend itself. (With the barest hint of what it once was.) “I’m not particularly interested in ascribing a metaphor, or symbols, to what results… I’m just looking for a point of transcendence…when you iterate an object to make something on a massive scale and the individual thing goes away.”
Describing her studio practice, she says, “There’s a real sense of play in my work. I tend to isolate each material and play with it looking for the fleeting moment. It is the thing that creates what you’re perceiving. How it’s held, how it’s reflected. Like the Mylar tape loops on the wall. The work isn’t completed until there is light, an engagement with light. Is it a water droplet? A glass marble?”
She’s asked if there’s a moment when she realizes a piece should be “massive.” The answer fires back: “I think every piece should be massive.” (The audience laughs, hatching plans to see the exhibit soonest, if not already.)
A full museum takeover of Donovan’s sculpture, drawings, works on paper, and site-responsive installations will leave your jaw on the floor.
For some museum staff, “massive” meant signing a check for $6,000+ to Home Depot, and hiring six semis to transport crates of said object to Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where the sculpture was built afresh in site-responsive proportions.
Roaming through the galleries, grateful for the chance to be astonished, art lovers — especially those always looking for something new — find each piece engaged in a dialogue with its surrounding, thanks to the natural light in each of the MCA’s galleries. So nearly surreal, most surely sublime.
A lifetime compilation of drawings and sculpture come together for the first-time in what MCA calls, “a full museum takeover,” as FIELDWORK runs through January 27, 2019. Museum of Contemporary Art, 1485 Delgany Street, Denver, Colorado 80202. Easy parking nearby.
