Walking into the newly expanded Catharine Clark Gallery to see “Jen Bervin: Source,” the first thing you must do is look up.
On view in the gallery’s 9,200-square-foot space is Bervin’s monumental installation “River” (2006-2018), which stretches across 230 curvilinear feet of the gallery ceiling and wall. The work imagines the Mississippi River as if viewed from the core of the Earth, rendered in handsewn silver sequins that reflect the light of the gallery like ripples on water.
Tracing the work’s journey through the gallery changes the way you experience the show: As you look up to the ceiling, your neck stretches, your focus becomes more intent and your awareness of the space changes. You can almost feel yourself moving with the flow of the sequined waters.
But even in the dreamy tranquility of the piece, larger issues about the Mississippi’s place in American culture assert themselves, including the river’s role in American expansion and manifest destiny as it was an early hub for industry.
“Source” also includes new works from Bervin’s “The Dickinson Composites Series” (2004-ongoing), the large-scale embroidered quilts that depict Emily Dickinson’s variant marks in her manuscripts. Also debuting in the show is Bervin’s sculpture titled “Measure (after Susan Hiller),” which was created by burning her journals from 1992 to 2012 and displaying the ashes in glass tubes. The work is a tribute to U.S.-born British conceptual artist Susan Hiller, who displayed the ashes of her own paintings in a similar fashion.