Abracadabra, 1994/2019
Granite
Series of five
Collection of the artist

Since the late 1980s, Harriet Bart has incorporated the book as a material in her art. She has often emphasized connections between the book and a building block, using it as a unit of construction to create structures with architectural references. In both its physical and conceptual dimensions, the book is foundational to Bart.

Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), an important literary figure of the twentieth century whose writings about books deeply impacted Bart, describes a space filled with books as a magical chamber [filled with] enchanted spirits. They wake when we call them. When the book lies unopened, it is literally, geometrically, a volume, a thing among things.

By representing it in stone, Bart heightens our sense of the book as an object in a state of unknown possibility. She implies its magical, transformational associations by inscribing its face with the incantation ABRACADABRA. Used widely in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the word was believed to have the power to ward off harmful forces when written in a repeated form, with one letter decreasing per line until only A remains. When inscribed on a wearable item the word functioned as an amulet.

Related Exhibitions:
Abracadabra and Other Forms of Protection / February 1 - May 24 2020 / Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis MN