Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey at the Gardner Museum - Boston - Brief Article

Last fall, British artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey were in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where they were given full access to the museum's holdings, conservation staff and gardeners. The resulting installation, "Presence," the couple's first major U.S. exhibition, might be described simply as a series of photographic images produced by the light sensitivity of grass; yet the work resounds with larger metaphors of growth, transformation and decay.

They began experimenting with grass more than a decade ago. Initially drawn to its physical properties, they soon discovered its light sensitivity and its capacity to register a detailed image. Subsequent research and collaboration with scientists at an environmental research facility in Wales immersed them in the study of this organic material. The artistic process involves seeding a prepared claylike surface, exposing it to an enlarged negative by projecting the image on the surface for several hours, and waiting for the latent image to appear as the grass grows. They gradually perfected the process of drying the grass to fix the image with some degree of permanence.

The exhibition featured seven major grass works measuring from 4 by 3 feet to a monumental triptych of 8 by 16 feet. The works were drawn from objects or individuals associated with the Gardner collections. The one exception, Mother and Child, a photographic representation of Ackroyd holding their 10-month-old daughter, is an image that the team has constructed before. They presented both the newly planted piece and the earlier version, now severely faded through prolonged exposure to the ultraviolet spectrum in daylight.

Their photosynthetic process serves the Gardner's eclectic collections quite effectively, transferring images of a 15th-century bust, a manuscript excerpt from Dante's Inferno, a section of bookshelves and the massive 12th-century Spanish gates from the museum's entrance with uncanny exactitude. Two pieces--informal snapshots of a staff member and a cooperative visitor--curiously infuse the human subjects with the same historical presence as the inanimate objects. The photographs emerge as the grass grows, fusing image and medium, much as subjects once appeared embedded in the fibers of paper negatives in the early days of photography. The delicacy and ephemeral quality of the grass heighten the experience of viewing these exquisite works.

Part of the Gardner's ongoing series of artist residencies, the project literally and metaphorically reflects the role of preservation that is at the center of the museum space and the photographic medium. The Gardner operates under a strict mandate by its founder that the collection and house be maintained unchanged, which presents the staff with significant conservation challenges. By conceptually repositioning and physically reinterpreting objects from the collection, Ackroyd and Harvey reveal the museum as a dynamic system. Their medium calls attention to the corrupting effects of light and time, underscoring the museum's critical role in preserving the objects under its care.

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group