for love or money

Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
19 November 2005 – 19 February 2006

First are words:

-words gathered into lists, or phrases
-words written across paper
-words carved into, onto, or out of wood
-words painted onto canvas
-words high up, encircling a room
-words etched into silver
-words projected (or not) onto a wall

The text in many of these works originates from spiritual or biblical sources. But the sources are, in some ways, insignificant. What a work becomes is more important than what it comes from. Words materialize. Text is made physical.  

Let me be straightforward. Isn’t a line of written text also a line drawn?  In reward, the line drawn across the wallpaper reads, “Sixty One Thousand Six Hundred and Six Gold Dollars.” It’s a line from a letter written in 1848 by the dead Shaker foundress, Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784), to a community of her living followers in New Lebanon, New York. The line in the letter, like the line on the wallpaper, suggests a large sum of money. It might be considered a check—but drawn on whose account? 

Related reading
for love or money (2005) for love or money (gallery guide), by Joe Houston, 2005 Mystery Man, by Ann Starr, in Columbus Monthly, February 2006