Pendulum, 2003
Cast bronze
48 x 16 inches diameter
Weisman Art Museum

This is Harriet Bart’s largest-scale engagement with the pendulum, a weighted, symmetrical instrument that hangs from a line suspended from a fixed support above. Subject to the forces of gravity, the pendulum passes through a center point at equal intervals and has been used to keep time since the seventeenth century. When stationary, a pendulum is known as a plumb bob and serves to find a true vertical line. 

The plumb bob has interested Bart for many reasons. She appreciates its ancient history, humble origins, elegant proportions, and mathematical precision. She uses it often in her assemblages and installations to draw attention to the point where the vertical and horizontal meet.

Publications:

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

  • Between Echo and Silence, essay by Joanna Inglot, Law Warschaw Gallery  Macalester College, 2012

Related Exhibitions: