Museum, 2007
Mixed media, bronze swarf, printed text
Closed: 5 ⅛ x 11 ½ x 7 ¼ inches
Open: 9 ¼ x 11 ½ x 12 inches
Collection of the artist

Museum is Bart’s visual response to a poem of the same name by Minneapolis writer Eric Lorberer. Bart interpreted the poem’s chief anxiety to be the relationship between beauty and danger, which she wanted to translate into physical form.

Her golden box and its jewel-toned contents allude to medieval reliquaries. Believed by medieval Christians to have healing powers, relics include the physical remains of a holy site or person, as well as objects these revered people encountered.

Those enticed by the box’s beauty who reach in will find its contents piercing: it holds strips of gemstone- colored paper on which Lorberer’s poem is printed in gold ink, along with sharp-edged slices of swarf—pieces of metal left over from the process of shaping Bart’s bronze bowls on a lathe.

Publication:

  • Abracadabra and Other Forms of Protection, Laura Wertheim Joseph editor and curator, Weisman Art Museum, 2020

Exhibition: