The gallery where the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum acquired its Tara Donovan print in 2007, the Krakow Witkin Gallery, is showing the artist again in a two-person exhibition with English artist Hamish Fulton.
Donovan has been transforming everyday items such as tape and index cards into monumental artworks for three decades. Harvard’s “Untitled (Rubber Bands)” (2006) showcases her inventive use of mass-produced materials and traditional art making techniques: “For the Fogg’s relief print she affixed nearly 2,500 coiled rubber bands to a base as a printing matrix, pulling 35 impressions directly from the inked upper surface of the bands,” according to the museum’s description.
Fulton, the artist joining Donovan at Boston’s Krakow Witkin Gallery, decided in 1973 to “only make art resulting from the experience of individual walks.” His high-contrast photos of nature walks from the 1970s play perfectly against the aluminum insect screens that Donovan has manipulated into shimmering patterns (2021–2022). Together they bring the nuance of 20th century art movements such as minimalism and conceptual art to bear on present-day trials such as climate breakdown and the isolating effects of our digital lives.
An unsentimental spin on fiber art, Donovan’s “Screen Drawings” look more techy than textural. Her holographic squares are reminiscent of TV static, or early video games on Atari, lending a sense of nostalgia, perhaps even an emo vibe, to this installation of modestly sized work on the wall. These “Screen Drawings” were made during the pandemic, and presented alongside Fulton’s elegiac markers for ephemeral journeys, their moodier side shines through. The effects of light and line also make a fitting homage to pioneering minimalist Agnes Martin’s ink-and-graphite grids.
The exhibition text mentions the theme of windows. If Donovan’s window is closed, Fulton’s remains wide open. The well-worn paths in his beautifully lit photographs are romantic reminders of landscape painting, literature and walking in open spaces. Standing before his “Whitehill Wood from Crossing the English Channel” (1972), one can easily imagine stepping into the handsome sans serif description. The rhythmical spaces opened up in Donovan’s “Screen Drawings,” meanwhile, are not portals into another dimension. Her handiwork is a bulwark.
A process in and of itself, Donovan’s postmodern weaving is ecstatic and revelatory, as, no doubt, are Fulton’s walks. The achievement appears in exquisite contrast to common, fraying household screens, and also recalls them with affection. Simultaneously reflective and impenetrable, Donovan’s “Screen Drawings” compliment Fulton’s ode to the natural world, and our place within it, with an equally poetic picture of interiority.
Donovan at the Harvard Art Museums
One reason to visit the Krakow Witkin Gallery: Donovan’s “Untitled (Rubber Bands)” is not currently on display in Cambridge.
Visitors can ask to view the print, though, or other artworks at the Harvard Art Museums’ Art Study Center. Jennifer Aubin, assistant director of media relations at the museums, shares the steps:
The Harvard Art Museums welcome Cambridge residents to make an appointment at our Art Study Center to get up close to works of art not on display in our galleries. Visitors may request to see drawings, paintings, sculptures and many other kinds of objects, from ancient times to the present. Appointments are free and are available year-round, with two weeks’ notice, Tuesdays through Fridays, between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Get started with browsing our collections online. Search by artist or keyword, build a collection and fill out our online appointment request form. Know a young art fan? Children age 14 and older are welcome to study center appointments, but must be accompanied by an adult.
You may have admired the museums’ striking glass rooftop from afar. Inside, you’ll find the Art Study Center’s open plan that provides ample space for each of the three museums (Fogg, Busch-Reisinger and Arthur M. Sackler) to facilitate quiet study of artwork and consultation with expert museum curators, conservators and educators.
Krakow Witkin Gallery and the Harvard Art Museums have a shared commitment to supporting the art community by “providing an educationally rich, friendly, open and welcome environment in which to observe, study and learn” about art, as Krakow Witkin Gallery’s website describes it, and I can attest.
“Tara Donovan and Hamish Fulton” at Krakow Witkin Gallery, 10 Newbury St., Back Bay, Boston. Summer hours, of 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays run through this Friday. From July 23 through Sept. 2, the gallery is open by appointment.
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