Harriet Bart | Reckoning

For Reckoning, Bart created a tableau that evokes memory, archetype, and symbol. “I was captivated by NewStudio Gallery’s space, low ceilings, and sense of compression,” Bart says. The installation includes a table setting that “reflects on the past, what we’ve had, and what we might lose,” she explains. In front of the table is an array of harrow disks, each of which holds an element of significance: an animal bone resembling a mask, a stone similar to an axe handle, a model of barn Bart constructed, a burl from a tree, a bronze-casting of a soapstone owl. Above every disk hangs a plumb bob. Under Bart’s gaze and through her aesthetic, every object in the installation has undergone transformation. Other works, some available for purchase, are also included in the exhibition.

“We live in a broken world,” Bart says. “Reckoning is a cautionary tale. The narratives I create are told through objects and images. Some of the objects in Reckoning are relics of the past; others, artifacts of the present. Objects in this installation also are from the natural world, collected cultural commodities, or created or altered in the studio.” 

Artist Talk: Harriet Bart in Conversation with Nor Hall. 

Sunday October 9th @ 1pm

Long-time friends and colleagues, Bart and Hall will delve deeply into “Reckoning,” its meanings and messages, and the global resonances within Bart’s work.   

About Harriet Bart

Among art collectors and museum curators, Bart needs little introduction. Her work is included in many museum, university, and private collections. She has experimented with genre and materials, and collaborated with artists and writers for more than four decades, creating exquisitely executed work of refinement and detail, symbol and materiality. 

Bart creates evocative content through the narrative power of objects, the theater of installation, and the intimacy of artist’s books. At the core of her work is a deep and abiding interest in the personal and cultural expression of memory. Using bronze, stone, and gold leaf; wood and paper; books and words; and quotidian found objects, Bart signifies a site, marks an event, and draws attention to imprints of the past as they live in the present. Despite the variety of material and subjects, Bart maintains a consistent aesthetic and set of themes that enrich each object and tableau.

Learn more about the artist in our McKnight Fellow Profile

About Nor Hall

Nor Hall is a psychotherapist, imaginal scholar, and theater collaborator. She did anthropology at Beloit College and received her Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness from the University of California-Santa Cruz. Her books include The Moon and the Virgin: Images of the Archetypal Feminine, Broodmales, and Those Women. She has worked with Pantheatre (Paris) and Archipelago Theatre (Chapel Hill) in the development of new pieces that give archetypal work a stage. Several of her articles have appeared in the Spring Journal, on Jess and Robert Duncan (Dreamway 59) and the “Architecture of Intimacy” (Marriages 60). She and her husband live happily on either side of the Mississippi anchoring an extended family in Minnesota.

Gallery Hours

Monday-Friday: 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Photo credit: Victor Bloomfield