New York
Mixed Greens
Once Donna Dennis decided to close the doors she had made, they opened for her. When she landed in New York City in the early ’70s and found herself smack within the barbed crosshairs of feminism and male-driven Minimalism, she confronted both. Her series of “door works”—including Egyptian Hotel (1972), a slim mastaba- like door—resembled geometrically shaped canvases that physically led nowhere. Instead, they functioned as psychological passageways through which Dennis discovered her voice. Studies For Little Tube House and the Night Sky (2015), an installation consisting of dioramas, an architectural sculpture, and related gouaches, celebrates this groundbreaking artist’s ability to stretch her voice. The door series, sired by memories of roadside country cabins where Dennis spent idyllic childhood family vacations, evolved into her iconic ’80s architectural models of tourist cabins, tiled subway station rest rooms, and related installations …see the entire review in the print version of July/August’s Sculpture magazine.
