artscope magazine: November/December 2008 Welcome Statement: Brian Goslow, managing editor Letters to the Editor Tara Donovan Juan Angel Chavez: Speaker Project JULIA FEATHERINGILL: INDELIBLE ANNE HARRIS: SELECTED WORKS Adel Abdessemed: Situation and Practice ENTANGLED: JANE HESSER, DOROTHEA VAN CAMP AND MARC VAN CAUWENBERGH RYAN WALKER: THE RECYCLER THOREAU RECONSIDERED "LATER THAT NIGHT..." NOCTURNAL IMAGES BY CHRISTIAN WAEBER LOSSLESS: A VIDEO INSTALLATION BY REBECCA BARON AND DOUGLAS GOODWIN THE WINNER'S CIRCLE: ANNA ISAAK-ROSS, YANICK LAPUH, GREGORY WRIGHT Luis Villanueva and Colo Colo Gallery RISD'S NEW CHACE CENTER BRIDGES THE DIVIDE Industry Focus: THE EXPOSURE PROJECT KAREN DOLMANISTH PAUL CLANCY BALAM SOTO THREE TO WATCH IN 2009: MASSART/FINE ARTS WORK CENTER OF PROVINCETOWN GRADS NANCY WINSHIP MILLIKEN, LOUIS THEODORE OLLIER AND KATIE JURKIEWICZ CENTERFOLD CONTEST OUTTAKES ANDY WARHOL:POP POLITICS CHIHULY AT RISD BESSIE POTTER VONNOH: SCULPTOR OF WOMEN BUSHWACHKED: KELLY JO SHOWS SAYS GOOD-BYE TO BUSH IN SEVERAL MEDIUMS Jules Olitski: An Inside View THE ALLURE OF ITALY: PHOTOGRAPHY, FASION DESIGN SINCE 1945 ELIZABETH KING: THE SIZES OF THINGS IN THE MIND'S EYE WORKS BY DOZIER BELL, LAUREN FENSTERSTOCK AND ALICE SPENSER TWISTED lONGWOOD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA The Music Hall Capsule Previews: November/ December 2008

Tara Donovan James Foritano Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston 100 Northern Avenue Boston Through January 4, 2009 "THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS" IS A MAXIM WHICH ANTICIPATES, UNCANNILY, THE ARRIVAL OF TARA DONOVAN ON THE ARTS SCENE AND, PRESENTLY, AT THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS ON OUR FAIR HARBOR. YOU HAVE TO GO, IF ONLY TO SEE JUST HOW EVOCATIVELY, HOW UNIQUELY, EACH "WHOLE" BUILT BY DOVOVAN AND HER CREW DIFFERS AND YET REFERS BACK TO THE SINGULARITY OF THE ITEMS THAT COMPOSE IT. Who knew that toothpicks, those straight pins, could be amassed into waist-high cubes with perfectly flat sides and tops and neatly creased edges? The third cube in the opening room of the exhibit, composed as it is of tempered glass in sheets, seems less counter-intuitive. Still, the three together are a tour de force of engineering formally elegant structures from commonplace parts - and with simple physical laws more often than glue or staples holding them together. As the viewer moves from room to room, these structures continue to intrigue us not only with their elegance and ingenuity, but also with their paradoxical beauty. How, one asks, can simple translucent drinking straws or plastic cups or paper plates or buttons, be transformed into such wondrous figurations?. This question is ever-present to the viewer because the “wholes” Ms. Donovan envisions and constructs are never flashy or finished enough to conceal their parts. As bulbously theatrical - now risible, now threatening – as are the hanging shapes in the penultimate gallery, we are always aware, even as we are responding to such different moods, that all the theater of “Untitled” comes out of the mouths of disposable Styrofoam cups, perfectly round or squished together into an infinity of deformations, somehow cohering, cheek-by-jowl.! Another reason to come to this exhibit is to enjoy the bare minimum of description on the wall labels – “cue cards,” if you will. Most, if not all of the components of Donovan’s sculptures, are deeply familiar to us from sight if not from daily use. And the wall labels inform us patiently and laconically that, yes, what you are looking at are indeed buttons, plastic cups, straight pins and toothpicks. Finally, we become educated enough to look closely and to guess before we run to find out what we already know. But, here again, it’s what we don’t know that is as important as what we do know, and Donovan is enough of an artist, of a shaman, even, to present us with commonplace sights that continuously overwhelm our expectations. Buttons, for example...t Read the entire article in our magazine pages...