POWER OF NUMBERS
Tara Donovan’s post-minimalist transformations
By Julianna Thibodeaux
If minimalism is by definition a simplification of form and color, then artist
Tara Donovan has turned it on its head. Deploying one simple object in
multiples rather than deploying it singularly, Donovan achieves an
ironically minimalist end where the resulting sculpture is viewed as a single
cadence, a single form.
Translucent paper cups comprise a waveform, or suggest an unblemished
snowy landscape; Mylar blooms into dozens of orbs as a single flower
head. Donovan’s drawings are equally spare and intense: ink-infused
bubbles “print” their bursts on paper; adding machine paper loops
endlessly, impressing itself as a single image in a wash of cohesive
elegance.
Such deceptively simple ideas have been recognized as a sort of
brilliance—Donovan was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2008—
but there’s also the art world attention: From graduate school work being
shown at the Whitney Biennial in 2000 to a recent survey at the Institute of
Contemporary Art in Boston (don’t call it a “retrospective”—Donovan says
that’s a dirty word), Donovan’s work is being shown far and wide and
lauded for its accessible and yet layered beauty.
The Brooklyn-based Donovan grew up in “the burbs” in Nyack, New York.
She received her B.F.A. in 1991 from the Corcoran College of Art and
Design and an M.F.A. in 1999 from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her
roster of other prestigious exhibition venues since completing graduate
school includes the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer
Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, among
others.
The latest major survey of Donovan’s work, comparable in scope to the
show in Boston, “Tara Donovan: Untitled” (which opened April 4) is on view
at the Indianapolis Museum of Art through August 1, 2010. The show
includes installations, drawings, and other work spanning the past 10 years
in addition to new work commissioned by the IMA.
I caught up with Donovan at the IMA prior to the opening, in town with her
family in tow—she’s the mother of 4-month-old twins—as she was
overseeing the installation of the exhibition. Even as she insists having
twins hasn’t changed her perspective… yet (I had to ask), doing things in
multiples seems to be a given.
While she’s a decided New Yorker, Donovan likes showing in the Midwest
for “practical reasons,” she says: “People in the Midwest are really nice
and they have a good work ethic. The volunteers here are all kicking butt.”
With practical matters out of the way, Donovan and I shared the following
conversation:
NUVO: Tell me about the show you’re doing here; what you have planned.
DONOVAN: There’s a piece that the IMA commissioned that’s made out of
Mylar. A lot of the pieces in the show I’ve installed before but it’s bringing
together several pieces. The exciting thing is the drawings. As they’re
uncrating drawings I’m being united with things I haven’t seen in 10 years.
NUVO: A lot of references to your work have stressed your use of so-
called “everyday objects.” Is that an important distinction for you?
DONOVAN: I think people like to hang on to that idea; but it’s not really the
truth. I started to work with everyday materials because they were cheap,
mass produced, easy to get—very practical reasons. My interest in the
materials has nothing to do with their purpose; it’s really about the
physicality of [the material] or the visual aspects of it. I’m more interested
in the shape, the color, the transparency.
NUVO: What would you consider your breakthrough work?
DONOVAN: The answer I suppose is the toothpick piece where I basically
discovered that this material en masse could create a natural adhesion. So
it kind of led me in the direction of using a singular material in a cumulative
way, so that it would become something else; that it would transcend itself.
NUVO: Your work often has been compared to geological and/or biological
forms. Does this reflect your intentions?
DONOVAN: To a degree… [but] I don’t set out with a specific vision in
mind. It always starts with the material and I go from there. My process
mimics, in the most elementary sense, the most basic systems of growth
found in nature. Using those guiding principles, those things tend to look
like natural or biological forms. So it’s not really forced.
NUVO: How did your academic experiences influence and/or shape the
kind of work you do—your concerns as an artist?
DONOVAN: It’s probably not that different from going to law school where
you learn a different language and learn to think about something
differently. Academically, that would be the valuable thing that I learned.
So much about being an artist is introspective in a lot of ways. It’s really
about paying attention to things that you’re inclined to do whether it be in a
craft sense or a visual sense, linking that to things in art history, and kind
of coming up with an understanding of it all. It’s kind of a slow building
process where you get to the point where you make connections, and you
have your own language, and you have rules and guiding processes, and
you work within them.
NUVO: How has your work evolved over the years?
DONOVAN: I’m still working it out. As an artist you’re always evolving. I
don’t know that I would say it has changed. I don’t have one set medium
that I work with that I’m trying to conquer so it’s more kind of trying to find
the physical peculiarities in the materials… I don’t use the same material
over and over again, so every time I make a piece, it [poses] the same set
of challenges. The work evolves within each piece. The work is always
evolving.
If you go: “Tara Donovan: Untitled,” through August 1, Indianapolis
Museum of Art, 4000 Michigan Rd. Admission is free for members and $8
for the general public. Call 923-1331 or visit www.imamuseum.org for more
information.