Project 1: Process
ARTIST RESEARCH

Tara Donovan

Everyday materials, easily assessable, inexpensive and mass produced items are specifically the things and materials that Tara Donovan uses to create her sculptures. She has drawn attention over the last decade for her ability to transform huge quantities of simple manufactured materials — plastic-foam cups, pencils, tar paper — into sculptural installations that suggest the ‘wonders of nature (Carol Kinko).’ Donovan’s ability to uncover unexpected qualities in the most commonplace materials and objects is extraordinary. Her results are large-scale abstract floor and wall works suggestive of landscapes, clouds, cellular structures and even mold or fungus. She considers patterning, configuration, and the play of light when determining the structure of her works. In her words, “it is not like I’m trying to simulate nature. It’s more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow (Paul Brewer).”
A dependence on the architectural particulars and lighting conditions of a given space impact the growth of her work in terms of scale, direction, and orientation. When installing her work in a small room for example may be less expansive while hanging from the ceiling then one that has large and possibly tall ceilings. Her favor of materials with a low profile and light reflectiveness or absorption also affect the placement and lighting circumstances of her works. Ignoring the idea of the gallery or museum as primarily a contextual space or “White Box”, Donovan inspects a potential exhibition site with an agenda similar to that of a devoted real estate agent. Searching for the balancing of the needs and desires of her works in accordance with their means and the square footage available.

Tara Donovan’s work is very oriented around her materials that she uses to create her bodies of work.  She focuses on exploring how the item can be manipulated or how they naturally act when stacked or placed next to each there and used them unorthodox ways. The forms created make the viewer wonder how and because her work is not out the ending but the process of how she chooses to use her materials.
For example Donovan’s Untitled (Styrofoam Cup Sculpture 2003) that was displayed at ACE gallery at New York and Los Angels in 2003 appears to be a series of rolling fully clouds, a honeycomb, or even a living fungi on the ceiling. Donovan creates the shapes and forms of the work not by just randomly gluing them together. When viewing the sculpture you can see how she pays attention to the shape of the cup. The process of compressing and changing the angles of how she glues the cups together is very important. This in turn creates the bubbling forms that create a gradient of shadows and light that travels through the cups’ cracks and is also absorbed and illuminating the space.
Another example is Bluffs - Illusion, 2006 made simply from buttons and glue. Donovan stacks the buttons in simple and elegant form that start to resemble stalagmites, corals or mountain peaks that are growing right before your eyes (A Place Called Space). There even comes a point when you forget that the whole thing is made so imperfectly and perfectly from these commonly found objects. In an interview Donovan stated, “ I develop a dialogue with each material that dictates the forms that develop. With every new material comes a specific repetitive action that builds the work, thus I feel safe in saying I will be able to keep finding new methods of production (Stender).” Donovan has to devote her time to figuring out how these materials work together and then performing these structured assemblies. This creates a process. Her understanding of the materials and process of stacking the cups, straws or buttons and or gluing the cups together becomes extremely labor intensive.  The bodies of work do not just magically appear and by their sheer size you can tell that another major part of her process is the labor that goes in to each of the bodies of work.
What is so different about Donovan is that ‘she doesn’t start out with a design but with the objects and then the work sort of emerges (ACE Gallery).’ Donovan creates a unique sculptural universe by ‘exploiting the potential of materials, their aesthetic effects and constructive qualities (A Place Called Space).’

Bluffs - Illusion, 2006 (buttons and glue) Pace Gallery

http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.com/2013/07/tara-donovan-in-louisiana.html

Untitled, 2003 (Styrofoam Cups, Hot Glue) Ace Gallery Los Angeles, 2005

Citations

Brewer, Paul. "Tara Donovan - Exhibitions - Hammer Museum." Tara Donovan - Exhibitions - Hammer Museum. Hammer Museum, 23 May 2004. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. <http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/81>.

Kino, Carol. "The Genius of Little Things." New York Times- Art&Design. New York Times,23Sept.2008.Web.28Jan.2014.<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/arts/design/28kino.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

INTERVIEW WITH TARA DONOVAN. ACE GALLERY. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. <http://www.acegallery.net/artistmenu.php?Artist=8>.

"Tara Donovan in Louisiana." A Place Called Space. N.p., 17 July 2013. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.<http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.com/2013/07/tara-donovan-in-louisiana.html>.
Stender, Oriane. "Artnet Magazine - Material Seduction." Artnet Magazine - Material Seduction. Artnet Worldwide Corporation, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014. <http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/stender/stender4-3-06.asp>.

Jackie Winsor

Jackie Winsor produces intimate, tactile sculptures that call attention to a complex relationship between interior and exterior. Winsor's simple-seeming works--organized primarily in cube, sphere or pyramid shapes, and made of rope or wood or cement--are imbued with unusual qualities of repose.
The process of creating these works is extremely slow and Winsor likened to a ritual long before that reference became so clichéd. The earlier all-rope series she had executed entirely alone, but the bound-log pieces grew too large and heavy for one person to handle. Four Corners, for example, weighs fifteen hundred pounds. Winsor worked four full days a week for six months during 1972 constructing the Oberlin Four Corners. At the core of the work is a simple square made of four two-foot-long logs, joined with invisible notches and painstakingly bound together by the artist with thousands of feet of twine that she had unraveled from strands of weathered rope. Winsor wrapped, bound, and knotted the twine around the wooden frame, transforming its geometry into an eccentric form of enormous density, weight, and textural and linear intricacy. She does not use any preparatory sketches or models. Although Winsor was  ‘financially able to hire assistants to construct the piece, she believed that the process of making and her role in that process were critical to the success of the work (Scott).’
Winsor stated in an interview, "My sense is that abstraction of a certain sort is more about the inner life then the outer life," she said. "It's like you might feel a rock. You have an inner relationship with it. . . . (You say to yourself) 'It looks clean. I think I'll sit here.' And then it's your spot. You have aligned yourself with the quality of it. It's nice and quiet and silent there. (You say to yourself) 'I'll go there and be nice and quiet and silent.' (The rock) relates to the intimate part of yourself, not what you necessarily share with everybody else (Curtis)." Her art is more then what you see on the outside but also the insides and the processes of how she got there.

Jackie Winsor’s art is extremely process oriented in that it is the directly a result of her repetitive, labor-intensive actions.  Her use of natural materials like rope or wood or cement and the direct relationship she has with the materials is very apparent.
For example when creating Four Corners (1972) she wrapped hemp around four two-foot-long logs, joined with invisible notches and painstakingly bound together by Winsor with thousands of feet of twine that she had unraveled from strands of weathered rope. When viewing the sculpture you can almost imagine her meticulously wrapping the hemp around and around the logs.  The amount of time and the process of using her hands to create this sculpture that ended up weighing fifteen hundred pounds is an extremely large conquest (Scott). This constant wrapping creates a progressing and building up of the hemp that resulted in the logs almost completely disappearing. The fact that you can no longer see the logs shows how much labor and process has been done to create these massive spheres like structures.
Another example is in creating #2 Copper, a tribute to her blend of minimalist geometric forms with the personal ritual of repetitive manual labor. Winsor used rough construction materials typically associated with masculinity but united them through a surprisingly feminine process, ‘coiling the wire into a ball as if it were a skein of yarn for knitting (Akron Art Museum).’ In this sculpture the her process if coiling the wire not only served as function in the process but as reinforced her feminist influences on her pieces.

Winsor doesn’t make any attempt to create objects that ‘look like something’ or serve a purpose. The focus on process is clear because the creation of the object through focus on unmediated repetitive action.

 

#2 Copper, 1976, Wood and copper

Four Corners, 1972, Wood and hemp, AMAM 1973.87

Citations

"Jackie Winsor." Paula Cooper Gallery. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. <http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/35>.

Curtis, Cathy. "Sculptor's Works Spring From Nature." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 10 Feb. 1992. Web. 4 Feb. 2014. <http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-10/entertainment/ca-1328_1_recent-works>.

"#2 Copper,1976." Online Collection. Akron Art Museum, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. <http://akronartmuseum.org/collection/Obj1741?sid=1679&x=764929&port=185>.

Scott, D.E. "Winsor Four Corners." Index of Selected Artists in the Collection. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014. <http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Winsor_FourCorners.htm#sthash.5my4ou3r.dpuf>.