Monday, November 16, 2009

Tara Donovan Exhibition at San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art

Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, this is the first major museum survey of Tara Donovan’s work. The artist’s sculptural installations are based on the physical properties and capabilities of a single accumulated material. Donovan uses prosaic items including electrical cable, adding machine paper, straight pins, paper plates, and toothpicks. These materials are arranged in a manner that sometimes mimics the organization of geological or biological forms.

Tara Donovan, Untitled (Styrofoam Cups), 2008, Styrofoam cups, hot glue

Through this subtle and remarkably affecting presentation, drinking straws may suggest clouds and plastic cups may call to mind a brittle winter landscape. Part of the intrigue of Donovan’s practice lies in the way she is able to present a mass of unaltered, simple objects that do not disguise what they are while simultaneously suggesting a range of richly poetic associations.

http://www.mcasd.org/exhibitions/exhibition.php?EID=194