A Dark Place of Dreams: Louise Nevelson with Chakaia Booker, Lauren Fensterstock, and Kate Gilmore

Thirty years after her passing, A Dark Place of Dreams revisits the monochromatic assemblages of Louise Nevelson, one of the pioneering American sculptors of the twentieth century, alongside three contemporary artists: Chakaia Booker, Lauren Fensterstock, and Kate Gilmore.

In her most iconic works, Nevelson utilized wooden objects gathered from urban debris piles to create monumental installations. This exhibition celebrates Nevelson’s lasting impact on contemporary sculptors who expand the tradition of assemblage in innovative and provocative ways. In the works of Booker, Fensterstock, and Gilmore, varied and dissimilar objects—from rubber tires to shells to paint in motion—register as somber black volumes dissolving into complex surfaces, echoing the mystery and scale of Nevelson’s pieces.

This exhibition marks the 35th anniversary of Nevelson’s unforgettable one-person exhibition at the Gibbes entitled Louise Nevelson, Sculpture, which filled the museum’s Main Gallery with her monumental works.

A Dark Place of Dreams is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville a cultural institute of the University of North Florida.

A Dark Place of Dreams is sponsored by BCBS of South Carolina, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Gibbes Women's Council, SC Arts Commission, Jane Smith Turner Foundation, and the City of Charleston.

Additional funding provided by Marlene Addlestone and Larry Bursten, Susan Bass and Tom Bradford, Caroline Finnerty, Barbara and Richard Hagerty, and The Intertech Group.