Driscoll Babcock Galleries presents Locus, by Harriet Bart, a solo, mixed-media exhibition that transforms the gallery setting into an alchemic site for exploring the difference between space and place.

A renowned conceptual artist, Bart identifies her tools as the “narrative power of objects, the theatre of installation, and the intimacy of the artist’s book.”

In Locus, bronze, coal, and found objects form imprints of memory and choreographed geographies. Manifesting in plumb bobs, vessels and deconstructed letters, Bart’s open investigation of place is simultaneously poetic, philosophical and architectural in nature.

“We are restive beings,” says Bart “often displaced by natural or human disasters.” Whether rebuilding after a hurricane or emigrating to a new country, “we long for a personal place of protection and meaning.”

Genii Loci seeks this protective spirit through a congregation of hanging magnifying glasses inscribed with fragments of text. From initial question, through research and final realization, the written word--its physical mark and its cultural meaning--permeates Bart’s work in unexpected ways. In visual poems of presence and absence, Without Words speaks through erasure, and while Autobiography includes scraps of manuscripts, its narrative is delivered by the collection of test tubes and their contents. The result is at once personal and archetypal.

Harriet Bart lives and works in Minneapolis, MN. Her work is represented in major public and private collections in the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN. Bart has had solo exhibitions at prominent museums such as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Laumeier Sculpture Park and Museum, Saint Louis, MO; Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN: Brunnier Museum, Ames, IA; and the Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN. Her work has shown worldwide in group exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM; CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China; and Klingspor Museum, Offenbach, Germany. A recipient of numerous fellowships and two Minnesota Book Awards, Bart is also a guest lecturer, curator, and founding member of W.A.R.M. Gallery and the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Arts in Minneapolis, MN.