Tara Donovan

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Biography, Work, Review

Tara Donovan was born 1969 in New York City. She studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York; Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington, D.C.; and Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond. Her most recent solo exhibitions have been mounted by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2003), Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX (2003), the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2004), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2004), and the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO (2006), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2007). Donovan is recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the inaugural 2005 Calder Foundation Prize and a 2008 MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant, which acknowledges outstanding achievement “on the very edge of discovery” and “new synthesis.” 1

Tara Donovan is an inventive young sculptor whose installations bring wonder to the most common objects of everyday life. Donovan’s site-specific, sculptural works transform ordinary accumulated materials into intriguing visual and physical installations. Choosing a single object – such as a transparent drinking straw, scotch tape, a Styrofoam cup, or a paper clip – Donovan experiments with assembling it in different ways. Sensitive to the specific needs of her materials and the nature of her exhibit spaces, her installations are often arranged in ways reminiscent of geological or biological forms. For her 2003 installation entitled “Haze,” Donovan stacked over two million clear plastic drinking straws against a 42-foot-long gallery wall. The resulting effect, with its shifts in color, form, light, and surface, was that of a fog bank or a diaphanous cloud, providing the viewer with a compelling, perceptually transformative experience. In a 2007 untitled work, Donovan created a 50x60-foot installation using over three million seven-ounce plastic drinking cups in rows of different heights, resembling a serene, iridescent ice field. This singular artist is creating a dazzling body of work that will enrich the fields of contemporary sculpture and installation art for years to come. 2

1 "Tara Donovan." Icaboston.org. The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. 
2 "Tara Donovan." Macfound.com. MacArthur Foundation, 27 Jan. 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. 
Image: Portrait of Tara Donovan at work, 2005. Photo: Ellen Labenski / Courtesy PaceWildenstein