Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/496780
186 CULTURED The traditional boundaries between "drawing" and "sculpture" "have blurred in terms of how I approach and produce work in my studio," says Brooklyn-based artist Tara Donovan. "What is of primary importance," she says, is "a surface of activity with the ability to exploit visual shifts. Whether these shifts manifest themselves in two or three dimensions is becoming increasingly beside the point for me." Known for her large-scale sculptures made from everyday objects like hot-glued styrofoam cups, stacked straws and toothpicks arranged into cubes, Donovan, a "Genius Grant" award winner, is comfortable working on the wall and in space and will do both this spring. "I actually never stopped making wall-mounted pin boards," she says, of the series of drawings she has expanded for her show at Pace Gallery in New York, which opens on May 9. "What separates these new drawings," made of pins pressed into painted foam board, from previous ones "is an underlying geometric structure that only asserts itself when viewed from a side perspective. The body of the viewer must be in motion to fully engage with my work. Each vantage point offers something new." Donovan starts every project with the material itself, like the Number 17 Royal Ruth pins she buys from Steinlauf and Stoller on West 39th Street in Manhattan. "I form a dialogue with the material in order to tease out structural possibilities for a unit, which can then be combined into larger units and multiplied ad infinitum." For the Parrish Art Museum exhibition, Donovan will deconstruct and refashion Slinkies "in such way that they project two dimensionally along the flat surface of a wall in meandering and layered patterns," she says. She will also create a free-standing sculpture "in which the spreading coils of Slinkies are exploited to suggest an evolving dispersion of material in space, like smoke unfurling in the air," says Donovan. Donovan was selected as Parrish's Platform artist for 2015, which included an invitation to use the museum's building and grounds to site work that transcends disciplinary boundaries—a perfect fit for Donovan. She is not only an admirer of the museum, she is also a distant neighbor; "For the last several years, I have spent a great deal of my summer on the North Fork of Long Island," says Donovan. "I have known Terrie Sultan [director of the Parrish] since I was an undergraduate student at the Corcoran [College of Art and Design, Washington, D.C.], where she was a curator at the time. The new Parrish space is beautiful and I am excited to do a project there." "Platform: Tara Donovan," opens July 4 and is on view through October 18. "The body of the viewer must be in motion to fully engage with my work. Each vantage point offers something new." —Tara Donovan A detail of Drawing (Pins), 2014