Harriet Bart

Though she acknowledges the impossibility of summarizing her nuanced body of work, conceptual artist Harriet Bart uses the word “bricolage”—combining disparate materials into a new whole—to define her approach. Known for her elegant and textured installations, public commissions, objects, and artist books, she works with such evocative materials as smoke, gold leaf, found everyday and vintage objects, and old books. Through her work, she expresses her deep and abiding interest in history and memory and the ways they manifest in both private and public life. Her Jewish heritage informs these interests and draws her to books, which she writes, makes, alters, and displays in seemingly endless variations. As the artist once explained: “I think one of the reasons that I cherish the book is that [it] is a place of recording and remembering.”