Heather Hart

“I was thinking about the huge demographic in New York that are constantly moving and relocating, migrating. All of us are kind of on top of each other, confronted with dealing with each other, laughing, chatting, teaching, yelling, learning, communicating. I was thinking about the spaces that are constantly in flux, being reinterpreted, re-experienced, translated and communicated, slipping through liminal space and cracks and breaks in language. . . . One of the things that I’ve discovered over time doing these rooftop projects is that, yeah, this attic space is obviously a space where slaves were hid in the Underground Railroad. That’s directly connected to my history as a black person in this country. . . . And this idea of space that connects American Black people together in a way through having no history, no space. There’s this idea of having a past, present and future nebulously exist at one spot.”

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Heather Hart, installation view of *Oracle of the Twelve Tenses*, 2020, Queens Museum.  Participatory installation made of wood, tar shingles, steel, and latex paint, 126 × 478 × 241 inches. Courtesy of Queens Museum.
Heather Hart, installation view of *Oracle of the Twelve Tenses*, 2020, Queens Museum.  Participatory installation made of wood, tar shingles, steel, and latex paint, 126 × 478 × 241 inches.  Courtesy of Queens Museum.
Digital rendering for Heather Hart’s *Oracle of the Twelve Tenses*, 2020. Digital image, dimensions variable. Courtesy of Queens Museum.
 
Heather Hart, interior view of *Western Oracle: We Will Tear the Roof Off the Mother* at Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park, 2013. Wood, tar shingles, paint, elk hide, and participation, 180 × 684 × 240 inches. Courtesy the artist.
Musical performance by Chargaux on top of Heather Hart’s *Oracle of Lacuna* at Storm King Art Center, 2017. Wood, tar shingles, steel, paint, iPad, archive of conversations, participation, 120 × 720 × 240 inches. Courtesy the artist.
Heather Hart, interior view of *Northern Oracle: We Will Tear the Roof Off the Mother* at Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Scarborough, 2017. Wood, tar shingles, paint, gold leaf, Dark Space by Mario Gooden and participation, 108 × 480 × 240 inches. Courtesy of University of Toronto, Scarborough, photo credit: Toni Hafkenscheid.
 

Heather Hart (b. 1975, Seattle, Washington) studied at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Princeton University in New Jersey, and received her MFA from Rutgers University. Hart’s work has been exhibited at Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, USA; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, USA; University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, USA; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; ICA, Philadelphia, USA; Art in General, New York, USA; The Drawing Center, New York, USA; MoMA PS1, Queens, USA; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, USA; among others. Hart has participated in residencies at Joan Mitchell Center (2015), McColl Center of Art + Innovation (2016), Bemis Center for Art (2014), LMCC Workspace (2013–14), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2005), Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (2011), Santa Fe Art Institute (2006), and the Fine Arts Work Center (2012–13). Hart has received grants from Anonymous Was A Woman, the Graham Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, NYFA, Harpo Foundation, Creative Capital and her work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Vilcek Foundation among others. She teaches at Rutgers University and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Heather Hart

“I was thinking about the huge demographic in New York that are constantly moving and relocating, migrating. All of us are kind of on top of each other, confronted with dealing with each other, laughing, chatting, teaching, yelling, learning, communicating. I was thinking about the spaces that are constantly in flux, being reinterpreted, re-experienced, translated and communicated, slipping through liminal space and cracks and breaks in language. . . . One of the things that I’ve discovered over time doing these rooftop projects is that, yeah, this attic space is obviously a space where slaves were hid in the Underground Railroad. That’s directly connected to my history as a black person in this country. . . . And this idea of space that connects American Black people together in a way through having no history, no space. There’s this idea of having a past, present and future nebulously exist at one spot.”

 
 

Heather Hart (b. 1975, Seattle, Washington) studied at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Princeton University in New Jersey, and received her MFA from Rutgers University. Hart’s work has been exhibited at Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, USA; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, USA; University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, USA; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; ICA, Philadelphia, USA; Art in General, New York, USA; The Drawing Center, New York, USA; MoMA PS1, Queens, USA; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, USA; among others. Hart has participated in residencies at Joan Mitchell Center (2015), McColl Center of Art + Innovation (2016), Bemis Center for Art (2014), LMCC Workspace (2013–14), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2005), Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (2011), Santa Fe Art Institute (2006), and the Fine Arts Work Center (2012–13). Hart has received grants from Anonymous Was A Woman, the Graham Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, NYFA, Harpo Foundation, Creative Capital and her work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Vilcek Foundation among others. She teaches at Rutgers University and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.