Concrete Poem, 1985
Acrylic, garment labels on canvas
40 x 39 ½  x 1 ½ inches
Weisman Art Museum

Found materials have often been the impetus for Harriet Bart’s artistic projects. She found the washable fabric instruction labels featured in this work in her studio in the Kickernick Building on First Avenue North in Minneapolis. They had been left behind by a coat manufacturing company that had previously occupied the space.

Against neatly ordered rectangles of black cross-stitches on canvas, Bart attached the labels with their reverse sides showing. An homage to abandoned things, anonymous garment workers, and poetry in nonlinguistic form, this work also exemplifies Bart’s approach to canvas as cloth.

Publication:

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

Exhibitions: