Autobiography detail, photo by Rik Sferra Autobiography, 2011 Mixed media, test tubes, steel, unique artist’s book Ledge with vials: 70 ½ x 6 ¼ x 2 in. Shelf: 36 x 12 in. Ledger (open): 29 ½ x 9 ½ x 1 ½ in. A personal year-by-year history of time and transformation. It is a story told with objects and text that reflect Bart’s long-held interests in cultural memory, history, science and alchemy.

HARRIET BART creates evocative content through the narrative power of objects, the theater of installation, and the intimacy of artists books. She has a deep and abiding interest in the personal and cultural expression of memory; it is at the core of her work. Using bronze and stone, wood and paper, books and words, everyday and found objects, Bart’s work signifies a site, marks an event, and draws attention to imprints of the past as they live in the present.

Bart’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Germany, and she has completed more than a dozen public art commissions in the United States, Japan, and Israel. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, NEA Arts Midwest, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Since 2000, Bart has published numerous fine-press books and mixed media bookworks. She has won three Minnesota Book Awards, most recently in 2015 for Ghost Maps. Her work is included in many museum, university, and private collections. In 2020, the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis will present Harriet Bart: Abracadabra and Other Forms of Protection. Curated by Laura Wertheim Joseph, Abracadabra . . . will be the first retrospective and monograph of her work. Bart is a guest lecturer, curator, and founding member W.A.R.M. and the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in Minneapolis, MN.

Visit her online here. See the full sized "Autobiography" here or visit the Weisman Art Museum fast before the exhibit is gone!