. She also worked in a wide array of materials including stone, brick, steel, water, plants, and L.E.D. lighting. photography, film, and artists’ books. Tacha's work focused on personal narratives, and often plays with geometry and form.
One of the first artists to develop environmental site-specific sculpture in the early 1970s, Tacha has won over fifty competitions for permanent
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania entitled Connections within Matthias Baldwin Park. She has had six one-artist shows in New York—at the Zabriskie Gallery, the Max Hutchinson Gallery, Franklin Furnace, the Foundation for Hellenic Studies, and the Kouros Gallery—and has exhibited in numerous group shows throughout the world, including the Venice Biennale. She produced a body of textual and photographic conceptual works and poetic studies, many of which were published as artist's books.[5]
Athena Tacha, Connections, 1981-92, Philadelphia, aerial view 2009 (photo by Jim Fennell)
Athena Tacha's artist books were printed between 1970 and 2005.
Printed Matter, Inc.The pocket books series are small folded books, similar to a zine that were often sold in a plastic sleeve. In The Way My Mind Works, Tacha writes about her schizophrenic mind, her ruminating mind, her orderly mind.[7] Others in the pocket series examine everyday life. The larger artist books focus on geometry, space, and minimalism.[8]
A Dictionary of Steps displays diagrams of steps. In addition, Tacha explored self portraiture, in works like Gestures and Expressions.
Exhibitions
In 1989, a retrospective of more than 100 of Tacha's sculptures, drawings and conceptual photographic pieces was held at the
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, also accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog (with an essay by Thalia Gouma-Peterson). Her most recent museum solo show, Small Wonders: New Sculpture and Photoworks at the American University's Katzen Arts Center
, Washington, DC, 2006, had a fully illustrated catalog with essays by Anne Ellegood and Brenda Brown (reinstalled in New York at Kouros Gallery in 2007). Since Tacha moved to Washington, DC, she has had two solo exhibitions at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery (2004 and 2008).
A 40-year retrospective (over 100 works), "Athena Tacha: From the Public to the Private," opened at the Contemporary Art Center (
, Greece, Jan. 16 - April 11, 2010. It presents for the first time all aspects of Tacha's art—from large outdoor commissions, to "body sculptures" and photoworks, to conceptual art and films—with a bilingual catalog (164 pp., 113 color illustrations). It is scheduled travel to Larissa and Athens through 2010.
Athena Tacha, Crossing - Corsica (2007), digichrome, 30"x54", Courtesy Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington
Tacha's sculptures and photo-works are in many American museums and private collections, including the
Victory Plaza, 2000–02, a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2) plaza with fountains in front of the
Dallas, Texas
STOP & GO: to Garrett Augustus Morgan, 2001–04, a plaza for Metrorail's Morgan Blvd. Station,
Washington, DC
Hearts Beat, 2002–04, a 350-foot (110 m) long ceiling of animated LEDs for a sky bridge between Grosvenor Metro station and the Strathmore Music Center, N. Bethesda, Maryland.
Riding with Sarah and Wayne, 2004–06, a mile-long trackbed pavement for the Light Rail, Newark, New Jersey.
Waterlinks II, 2006–08, a 16x28 ft. granite water wall at the
Athena Tacha, Dancing Steps amphitheater and Star Fountain (aerial view), Muhammad Ali Plaza, Louisville, KYAthena Tacha, Star Fountain at night (7-minute RGB animation), Muhammad Ali Center Plaza, Louisville, KY (photo Richard E. Spear)
Athena Tacha, Light Obelisk Fountain with Light Riggings arcade (4-minute RGB animation), Wisconsin Place, Bethesda, DC/MD (photo Richard E. Spear)Athena Tacha, Friendship Plaza with Light Obelisk Fountain (aerial view), Wisconsin Place, Bethesda, DC/MD (photo Richard E. Spear)Athena Tacha, WWW-Tower, day and night (animated LEDs), Wisconsin Place, Bethesda, DC/MD (photo Richard E. Spear)
A plaza pavement with a Light Obelisk Fountain in front of Bloomingdale's; an arcade ceiling, Light Riggings, with RGB animation; and a LED sculpture, WWW-Tower, 2001-09—in collaboration with Arrowstreet Inc., CRJA and Art Display Co. -- for Wisconsin Place, a 5-acre (20,000 m2) development at Friendship Heights Metro station, Bethesda, Maryland.
Books, catalogs, and articles
Books on Tacha's work:
Athena Tacha: Public Sculpture (1982), with introductory essays by Ellen H. Johnson and Theodore Wolff
Forms of Chaos: Drawings by Athena Tacha (1988)
Elizabeth McClelland, Cosmic Rhythms: Athena Tacha's Public Sculpture (1998),[11] in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title at the Beck Center for the Arts in Cleveland
Dancing in the Landscape: The Sculpture of Athena Tacha (2000), with an introduction by Harriet Senie and over 200 color reproductions.[12]
Visualizing the Universe. Athena Tacha's Proposals for Public Art Commissions, 1972-2012 (2017), ed. Richard E. Spear, introduction by Glenn Harper and Twylene Moyer.[13]
Fifty Years Inside an Artist's Mind: The Journal of Athena Tacha (2020), 780 pp., edited with introduction by Richard E. Spear, Washington, D.C., 2020,
Athena Tacha: Public Works, 1970-88 (2009), with an introductory essay by Catherine M. Howett and John Howett, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA [14]
Athena Tacha: New Works, 1986-89 (1989),
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, with an introductory essay by Thalia Gouma-Peterson[15]
Athena Tacha: Small Wonders - New Sculptures and Photoworks (2006), with introductory essays by Anne Ellegood and Brenda Brown, American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC, Sept.6-Oct.29, 2006 [16]
Athena Tacha: From Public to Private (2010), a bilingual catalogue for a traveling 40-year retrospective, with essays by Katerina Koskina and Syrago Tsiara, CACT (State Museum of Modern Art), Thessaloniki, Greece [17]
Several of Tacha's New York exhibitions have illustrated catalogues -- Massacre Memorials (Max Hutchinson, 1984), with an essay by
Lucy Lippard
; Vulnerability: New Fashions (Franklin Furnace, 1994), a conceptual art piece critiquing the fashion industry; and Athena Tacha: Shields and Universes (Foundation for Hellenic Culture, 2001).
