Elizabeth Michelman
Bounded In a Nutshell Ceramic tile, brass hardware, acrylic walnuts, paint, satin 11” x 15” x 15”
Transitional Subject Coated aluminum, poem 32 units, 1” x 12” 1996
Transitional Subject (installation detail, final steps)
Vehicle of Meaning Found wagon, oak molding, ceramic tile, paint, words, steel cable and hardware 36 ½” x 17 1/2"” x 15” 1993
Dear Dr. Freud Paper pulp, Hydrocal, and aluminum scren over stretched canvas Five units, each 48” x 38” x 2 ½” (installation view) 1996
Thoreau/Hero Oaktag file dividers, graphite, polyurethane, language 40 units, 5” x 6½” and Light Touch handmade paper, pigment, iron wire, each unit 5” x 4” x 4” 1996
Thoreau/Hero (installation detail)
Speakable/Unspeakable” Marble tile, brass hinge, mirror shelf, language 12” x 26” x 12” 1993
In Your Eyes Ceramic tile, brass hinge, mirror shelf 12” x 26” x 12” 1993
Rock-a-my-Soul Ceramic tile, steel hinges, cable Ten units 19” x 10” x 1” 1993
Rock-a-my-Soul (detail)
Clear Boundaries Walnut shell, glass lid, mirror, wooden pedestal 52” x 11” x 11” 1996
Liar/Lyre Ceramic tile, brass drawer pull, hinges, steel cable Seven units 27” x 8” x 2 ½” (installation view) 1993
Liar/Lyre (detail)
Empathic Impasse Steel mesh, aluminum screen, copper wire, steel cable, language Twelve units, 12” x 12” x ½” 1996
“Go Away” Marble, steel hinges, cable, language four units 24” x 12” x 1” 1995
“Go Away” (installation detail)
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Bounded In a Nutshell
Playing into the karma of The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, this site-responsive installation gave voice to wishes and resistances. Once a grand urban residence and now a training institute for psychotherapists, the nineteenth century townhouse provided a context for many works relating to the inner life of a patient in therapy. The objects and installations in specific settings weave fantasies around specific architectural details, routes of transit, imagined lecture topics, and moments of intimacy. The individual works offer poignant, hopeful, and contradictory messages. What is meant is not necessarily what is said; what is said may not be properly understood.