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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2008.84.1-17
People
Moyra Davey, Canadian (Montreal, Canada born 1958)
Title
Bone
Classification
Photographs
Work Type
photograph
Date
2008
Culture
Canadian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/323639

Physical Descriptions

Medium
14 C-Prints, 3 black and white gelatin silver prints
Technique
Chromogenic print
Dimensions
99.06 x 124.46 cm (39 x 49 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Moyra Davey, New York, New York, sold; to Harvard University Art Museums, 2008.

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Edition
Unique work

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Leslie Cheek, Jr.
Copyright
© Moyra Davey
Accession Year
2008
Object Number
2008.84.1-17
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Moyra Davey's Bone is the third component (reading left to right) of a triptych entitled Calendar of Flowers, Gin Bottles, Steak Bones; underneath this larger heading each work has an individual title: Blow, Bloom, Bone. Each "arrangement" is a unique work.

Bone contains several highly autobiographical images: a picture of the artist and her son looking down at their feet, a black and white photo taken while Davey was a graduate student at UCSD of her then boyfriend's (now husband Jason Simon) foot, as well as a series of shots of empty booze bottles (Sapphire Gin, Sky vodka, Johnnie Walker and Crown Royal) staged in ways that capture the light, around the interior of her Manhattan apartment. So too we see a photographed still-a self portrait-from the artist's video 50 Minutes, as well as an image of the artist's dog, Bella, looking out of the window. All of these images are punctuated by the recurring motive of steak bones, each scrubbed clean and drying as they undergo their inevitable transformation into dust. The affect of the work is more than the sum of its parts-as the piece touches on and connotes many of Davey's central themes and motifs: the passage of time (signaled through shifting light and drained bottles) the interior as a space of intimacy and isolation (the image with her son, the dog, and the exterior of the decaying prison), the role of reading (the picture of books by Chekhov and Cheever, both authors consumed with what Freud would call the family drama), and the inevitability of death.

Publication History

  • Johanna Burton, Moyra Davey, Artforum (New York, 2008), XLVII, No. 3

Exhibition History

  • Long Life Cool White: Photographs by Moyra Davey, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 02/28/2008 - 06/30/2008

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu