Donna Dennis PETER MAUSS/ESTO Home Away When Donna Dennis created her earnest, Dennis’s large, early works, which plain-spoken “Tourist Cabins” at the out- resemble stage sets and heavy fortress set of her career, they had the impact of walls, reveal her roots in painting. After cultural icons. She was one of a number receiving a BFA from Carleton College in of sculptors fresh on the ’70s scene— 1964, she went to Paris, where flaking, including Alice Aycock and Jackie Ferrara— centuries-old buildings fed her imagina- who pushed sculpture toward the domain tion. One year later, she moved to New of architecture. Almost all of the artists in York City and attended classes at the Art this group dealt with structures relating Students’ League, while gradually becom- from to human shelter, but Dennis actually ing attracted to the symbolism and physi- made architecture—American vernacular cality of doorways. At the same time, she architecture—and transformed it into was deeply affected by the small habitats sculpture. Her groundbreaking work in Joseph Cornell’s boxes—and their evo- appeared in the Whitney Biennial, at the cations of “being elsewhere.” She soon Tate Gallery, and other important spaces began to shift her shaped canvases in the for the better part of two decades; she direction of façades and exotic structures. was represented by Holly Solomon for In 1972, she created Hotel Pacifico, one of Home much of that period. However, during the the first of these flat edifices, which led 1990s, Dennis began to focus almost exclu- her to develop more three-dimensional sively on teaching and public art projects. and complex configurations. Now, she has returned more vigorously to Her breakthrough Tourist Cabin Porch her work, exhibiting at national and inter- (Maine) (1976), a completely three-dimen- BY DEBORAH EVERETT national venues—including a piece at the sional bungalow with a screened-in porch, Genoa Biennale, a permanent installation recalls a time before the average Ameri- in Miami, and a solo show in New York can could afford hotel stays. Dennis has at five myles. The resurgence of Dennis’s remarked that the piece’s origin lies in her work—with its piercing insights into our childhood memories of family vacations national character—comes at a curious and the small houses that were rented O T S point in world events, when America’s out to tourists as more Americans took E / S S international presence speaks more to to the road. The work harks back to the U A M Opposite and this page: Deep Station, 1981–85. our collective temperament than our pro- beginning of America’s appetite for diver- R E T E P Mixed media with sound, 135 x 240 x 288 in. fessed beliefs. sion—especially in the form of tourism— Sculpture June 2006 45 Left: Tourist Cabin (Pensacola), 1976. Mixed media, 78 x 52.25 x 72 in. Above: Moccasin Creek Cabins, 1983. Mixed media, each unit 78 x 52.25 x 72 in. Temporary installation in Aberdeen, SD. but without warmth or comfort or security. A ‘place to stay’ just for one night before moving on and on, never staying long anywhere, never belonging anywhere.” These lines could be a national epigraph, since Americans define themselves as indi- vidualists, even loners, striving to stand out from the crowd and never quite at ease and suggests new outlets for the restless and frugality and refutes quality of life (or at home) in any one place. Crossing the national urge to be on the move. However, issues; stripped of decoration and com- prairie or cruising in our cars, we seek the while it points to the liberating possibili- forts, it is a modern-day descendant of freedom of open spaces, while yearning ties of travel, it also signals the uncertainty America’s roots in Puritanism. for the refuge of home. All the while, we and dislocation of being in transit. Tourist Cabin (Pensacola) (1976) shifts know these goals to be incompatible, since During this period, Dennis was intensely attention to another part of the country. home implies community and limits on moved by Walker Evans’s roadside pho- The screened porch is full length, and its personal freedom to support the common tographs of clapboard buildings in the added details suggest a Southern, or per- good. country’s heartland. Tourist Cabin clearly haps rural, sensibility. Less severe and Moccasin Creek Cabins (1983) marks reflects this influence: it is a masterpiece more homey, it seems intended for a a further development of this theme. of understatement, revealing much about lengthier habitation. Despite its title, the Modeled after the Pensacola cabin, this America’s national character. Deceptively sense of transience has changed. Rather group of three buildings takes a startling simple and unaffected, it embodies the than the temporary displacement of a no- leap into an outdoor setting. They were, classic qualities of the American disposi- frills vacation, it suggests a long-term in fact, sited on the surface of Moccasin tion—a forthrightness linked to the com- encampment—like a cook’s or gardener’s Creek in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Their mon man, a sense of working-class practi- cottage, set back from the “big house.” It mysterious location—afloat on a body cality and abstention, and a solidity con- is home to those who have no home— of water—was both enigmatic and unset- noting strength and self-reliance. The other the sometimes shelter that derives from tling. Were they houseboats? Or fugitives side of these traits, however, includes the favor of others; if conditions should from a natural disaster? How long could an almost unconscious denial of personal change, the occupants may be asked to they stay afloat, and where would they S E well-being, an individualism that often vacate at a moment’s notice. end up? Perhaps they had simply let go I V A D leads to isolation, and a longing for reso- Dennis has said in her journals that she of their moorings. Adrift, cast-off, and N A V E lution of these frustrations. The cabin’s is interested in “a home that is not a home. unreachable, they brought a new level B : T F E pared-down style connotes pragmatism A home on a journey. A home, a shelter, of meaning to Dennis’s vagabond shelters. L 46 Sculpture 25.5 Left: Two Stories with Porch (for Robert Cobuzio), activity, each structure expresses a defini- occupied by Dennis’s buildings are con- 1977–79. Mixed media, 126 x 120.5 x 85 in. Right: tive character (and life) of its own. Perhaps nected to fictive spaces in our minds. This Cataract Cabin, 1993–94. Mixed media with this vitality results in part from Dennis’s simultaneous siting in both concrete and water pump, 144 x 144 x 144 in. attention to detail. Many pieces, for invented worlds is especially clear in instance, have a single glowing light in her surfaces—which are both illusionistic Perhaps the most atypical of Dennis’s front, infusing the work with anticipation, (painterly renderings) and actual, loaded homes is Two Stories with Porch (for Robert as though an arrival is expected at any with layers of dust, dirt, and drips that Cobuzio) (1977–79). Unlike her cabins, this moment. record the human residue of their evolu- house, as its title implies, is large and Yet despite the realistic touches, many tion over time. suggests the domicile of a settled, middle- of the specifics cue the fantasy nature of Dennis’s homes, then, embody the illu- class family. Yet the sense of loneliness and Dennis’s work. For instance, her structures sion, as well as the solitude, within Ameri- desertion remains. On closer examination, are generally about three-quarters the size can personal space—but she also found we find that it advertises for a traveler or of actual buildings. And, as critic George psychological meaning in public spaces. tenant by posting the one word that echoes Melrod pointed out, when you begin to In 1974 she began making a series of mys- O T S its condition: “Vacancy.” Clearly, even a play with scale, you leave logic for the terious subway entrances, focusing on their E / S S U family dwelling can be an empty shell. world of imagination. Similarly, some of contained energies and often contradictory A M R Throughout her career, Dennis’s work has the construction in Dennis’s buildings is configurations. The portals beckon to the E T E P : been acclaimed for its depth and complex- more evocative than real—like theatrical viewer despite the blockage of, or locks T H G I ity. Filled with psychological content, each backdrops. The planks, for instance, in on, their entrances. Like Dennis’s houses, R / E E of her buildings has its own persona. Since most of her clapboard cabins are delicately they reveal the ambiguity of the American D S E home is the structural equivalent of self, drawn with graphite, placing them squarely character—with seemingly open, straight- M A J . D each piece has an affecting sense of place. in the realm of metaphor. Carter Ratcliff forward exteriors masking a sealed and : T F E L Rather than a passive backdrop for human once remarked that the literal spaces isolated core. They recall the dual nature Sculpture June 2006 47 Blue Bridge/red shift, 1991–93. Mixed media with sound, 144 x 168 x 288 in. booth, perched over the tracks, reveals a tiny wall clock, stopped eerily at 12:05. In the distance, a fog-horn wails on tape, tolling some dreadful loss that underlies this luminous presence.