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Rachel Harrison (artist)

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American visual artist This article is about the American artist. For the British computer scientist, see Rachel Harrison (computer scientist). For the horror writer, see Rachel Harrison (writer).
Rachel Harrison
Born1966 (1966)
New York City
NationalityAmerican
Known forSculpture

Rachel Harrison (born 1966) is an American visual artist known for her sculpture, photography, and drawing. Her work often combines handmade forms with found objects or photographs, bringing art history, politics, and pop culture into dialogue with one another. She has been included in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the US, including the Venice Biennale (2003 and 2009), the Whitney Biennial (2002 and 2008) and the Tate Triennial (2009). Her work is in the collections of major museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Tate Modern, London; among others. She lives and works in New York.

Early life

Harrison was born in 1966 in New York City. Her mother was born in New Jersey and her father was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were both of Polish and Russian Jewish descent. In 1989 Harrison earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors from Wesleyan University, where she first enrolled as an anthropology major but later switched to fine art, studying under the sculptor Jeffrey Schiff and the composer Alvin Lucier.

Career

Sunday Morning (2001) at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2022

Harrison’s early work is characterized by a provisional use of everyday materials, often responding directly to the architectural context in which it was situated. In 1996, she had her first solo exhibition, titled Should home windows or shutters be required to withstand a direct hit from an eight-foot-long two-by-four shot from a cannon at 34 miles an hour, without creating a hole big enough to let through a three-inch sphere?, at Arena Gallery, New York. Here Harrison covered the parlor of a Brooklyn brownstone with imitation-wood paneling, small sculptures, cans of peas, and photographs of green trash bags that came from a single contact sheet. The title of the show was taken from the first sentence of a news article the artist read about the politics of insurance codes and natural disasters, following the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in Florida.

In 2001, Harrison’s exhibition Perth Amboy opened at her New York gallery, Greene Naftali. The exhibition presented a series of 21 photographs that she took the previous year of an apparition of the Virgin Mary that allegedly manifested in the second-story window of a house in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, alongside installation components. Roberta Smith described the exhibition in the New York Times as "an effective meditation on vision, belief and the search for the self." Perth Amboy was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art in 2011 and was exhibited in 2016.

Harrison's 2007 exhibition If I Did It comprised ten sculptures named after famous men such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Al Gore, and Alexander the Great, and a series of 57 photographs titled Voyage of the Beagle in which the artist documented a range of three-dimensional objects, from sculptures to display mannequins. The sculptures in If I Did It are characterized by the collision between abstract, brightly colored forms and found or store-bought consumer objects. For the critic John Kelsey, Harrison’s sculpture of this period “sets itself up as a sort of switching station where cultural materials and meanings are violently disconnected and recombined.” The works in If I Did It were first shown in New York and then traveled to Migros Museum in Switzerland and Kunsthalle Nürnberg in Germany. The exhibition and its accompanying catalog are titled after O. J. Simpson’s “ill-fated memoir” of the same name.

Harrison often draws from popular culture and celebrity in her work, placing those references alongside art-historical ones. For instance, in her 2012 exhibition The Help (which shared a title with a Hollywood movie), the pieces shown featured references to the Brian de Palma film Scarface and the singer Amy Winehouse, as well as to artists like Alice Neel, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp. In 2013, Harrison received her first public art commission for the sculpture Moore to the Point in Dallas, part of the Nasher Sculpture Center's Nasher XChange exhibition. The work points to and frames the existing Henry Moore sculpture Three Forms Vertebrae, installed near Dallas City Hall. Harrison’s intervention calls attention to how the public interacts with works of public art.

In 2009, the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College presented Consider the Lobster, the first major survey exhibition of Harrison’s work. It included four room-sized installations, a series of individual sculptures, and a gallery devoted to video. The exhibition traveled, with altered titles and checklists, to Portikus, Frankfurt (under the title HAYCATION), and Whitechapel Gallery, London (as Conquest of the Useless). In October 2019 Harrison was the subject of a large-scale survey exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Entitled Rachel Harrison Life Hack, the exhibition assembled over one hundred works from 1991 to the present and received numerous positive reviews. Interview Magazine called the show “less a staid re-presentation of her masterpieces and more an audacious, rambunctious artwork all in itself.” Hal Foster wrote in Artforum that “her work is concerned less with exposing cultural myths than with retelling them, often in a perverse way.”

Exhibitions

Select solo exhibitions

  • Should home windows or shutters be required to withstand a direct hit from an eight-foot-long two-by-four shot from a cannon at 34 miles an hour, without creating a hole big enough to let through a three-inch sphere?, Arena Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (1996)
  • The Look of Dress-Separates, Greene Naftali, New York (1997)
  • Patent Pending: Beveled Rasp Sac, Greene Naftali, New York (1999)
  • Perth Amboy, Greene Naftali, New York (2001)
  • Brides and Bases, Oakville Galleries, Toronto (2002)
  • Currents 30: Rachel Harrison, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee (2002)
  • Posh Floored as Ali G Tackles Becks, Camden Art Centre, London (2004)
  • Excuse Me?, Arndt + Partner, Berlin (2004)
  • Lakta/Latkas, Greene Naftali, New York (2004)
  • New Work, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2004)
  • Car Stereo Parkway, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2005)
  • When Hangover becomes Form, with Scott Lyall, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; LACE, Los Angeles (2006)
  • Checking the Tires, Not To Mention The Marble Nude, Galerie Christian Nagel, Köln (2006)
  • If I Did It, Greene Naftali, New York (2007)
  • Voyage of the Beagle, Migros Museum, Zurich (2007)
  • Lay of the Land, Le Consortium, Dijon (2008)
  • Sunny Side Up, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2008)
  • Consider the Lobster, Hessel Museum, Bard College, Annadale-on-Hudson (2009)
  • HAYCATION, Portikus (2009)
  • Conquest of the Useless, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010)
  • Asdfjkl;, Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2010)
  • Double Yolk, with Scott Lyall, Galerie Christan Nagel, Antwerp (2011)
  • The Help, Greene Naftali, New York (2012)
  • Villeperdue, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2013)
  • Fake Titel, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2013)
  • Fake Titel: Turquoise-Stained Altars for Burger Turner, S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium (2013)
  • Who Gave You This Number?, New York University Institute of Fine Arts, New York (2014)
  • Three Young Farmers, Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2015)
  • Gloria: Robert Rauschenberg & Rachel Harrison, Cleveland Museum of Art (2015)
  • Rachel Harrison: Perth Amboy, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016)
  • Depth Jump to Second Box, Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2016)
  • Prasine, Greene Naftali, New York (2017)
  • House of the Dolphins, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo (2018)
  • Rachel Harrison Life Hack, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019)
  • Drawings, Greene Naftali, New York (2020)

Select group exhibitions

Public collections

Harrison's work can be found in a number of public institutions, including:

Awards

Bibliography

  • Basilico, Stefano, Rachel Harrison, and Gareth James. Currents 30: Rachel Harrison. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 2002.
  • Munder, Heike, Ellen Seifermann, and John Kelsey. If I Did It. Zürich: Migros Museum and JRP Ringier, 2007.
  • Banks, Eric, and Sarah Valdez, eds. Rachel Harrison: Museum With Walls. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York: Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; London: Whitechapel Gallery; Frankfurt am Main: Portikus, 2010.
  • Harrison, Rachel. Abraham Lincoln. New York: Printed Matter, 2010.
  • Harrison, Rachel. “Rump Steak with Onions.” Triple Canopy. Web project, 2011.
  • Figner, Susanne and Martin Germann, eds. Fake Titel. Cologne: König, 2013.
  • Rutland, Beau, ed. Rachel Harrison: G•L•O•R•I•A. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.
  • Sussman, Elisabeth and David Joselit. Rachel Harrison Life Hack. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2019.
  • Banks, Eric, ed. The Classics. New York: Greene Naftali, 2020.
  • Cesarco, Alejandro, ed. Rachel Harrison / Haim Steinbach: Between Artists. New York: Art Resources Transfer, 2020.

References

  1. Schjeldahl, Peter (15 December 2014). "The Shape We're In: The timely sculpture of Rachel Harrison". The New Yorker. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  2. "Rachel Harrison and Nayland Blake". BOMB magazine. October 1, 2008. Retrieved March 26, 2018.
  3. ^ "Rachel Harrison Life Hack". Whitney Museum of American Art. October 25, 2019. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
  4. Basilico, Stefano (2002). Currents 30: Rachel Harrison. Milwaukee Art Museum. p. 15. ISBN 0944110983.
  5. Seifermann, Ellen (2007). "Many Layered Objects: Notes On Rachel Harrison's Strategies". If I Did It. p. 116. ISBN 978-3-905770-56-8.
  6. "The Whitney to Present Rachel Harrison's First Full Scale Survey" (PDF). Whitney Museum of American Art. August 13, 2019. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
  7. ^ "Rachel Harrison". Greene Naftali. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
  8. ^ "Rachel Harrison – Artist's Profile", The Saatchi Gallery, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  9. Phaidon Editors (2019). Great Women Artists. Phaidon Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0714878775. {{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  10. ^ Schjeldahl, Peter (2014-12-22). "The Shape We're In". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  11. ^ "Rachel Harrison", Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  12. Sussman, Elisabeth (2019). "Two or Three Things I Know About Her". Rachel Harrison Life Hack. Whitney Museum of American Art. p. 226. ISBN 9780300246858.
  13. "Rachel Harrison". www.zingmagazine.com. Retrieved 2019-08-25.
  14. Rachel Harrison Life Hack. Whitney Museum of American Art. 2019. p. 28. ISBN 9780300246858.
  15. Quint, Michael (December 1, 1995). "A Storm Over Housing Codes". The New York Times.
  16. Mohebbi, Sohrab (2021). "Rachel Harrison". The Marieluise Hessel Collection: Volumes I & II. p. 398.
  17. Smith, Roberta (April 13, 2001). "Rachel Harrison". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  18. "Rachel Harrison. Perth Amboy. 2001". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved June 17, 2021.
  19. "If I Did It". Greene Naftali. February 23, 2007. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
  20. Joselit, David (2019). "Rachel Harrison, Untranslatable". Rachel Harrison Life Hack. p. 252. ISBN 9780300246858.
  21. Boucher, Brian (June 2007). "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men". Art in America. p. 86.
  22. Kelsey, John (2007). "Sculpture in an Abandoned Field". If I Did It. p. 122. ISBN 978-3-905770-56-8.
  23. Burton, Johanna (May 2007). "Rachel Harrison". Artforum. p. 369.
  24. Bankowsky, Jack (2010). "Monkey House Blessing Potpourri". Museum With Walls. ISBN 978-1936192038.
  25. Doran, Anne (11 May 2017). "Rachel Harrison - Reviews". Art in America. Retrieved June 17, 2021.
  26. "Deep in the Art of Texas – News – Art in America". www.artinamericamagazine.com. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  27. "Nasher XChange: Moore to the point - Rachel Harrison". Nasher Sculpture Center. October 19, 2013.
  28. Rachel Harrison Life Hack. Whitney Museum of American Art. 2019. p. 141. ISBN 9780300246858.
  29. Dillon, Matt (Fall 2019). "Rachel Harrison by Matt Dillon". Interview Magazine. p. 66.
  30. Foster, Hal (January 2020). "Smart Objects". Artforum. p. 187.
  31. "Rachel Harrison Bio" Archived 2013-10-21 at the Wayback Machine, Greene Naftali, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  32. "Rachel Harrison - The Look of Dress-Separates". Greene Naftali. March 21, 1997.
  33. "Rachel Harrison - Patent Pending: Beveled Rasp Sac". Greene Naftali. May 13, 1999.
  34. "Rachel Harrison - Perth Amboy". Greene Naftali. March 23, 2001.
  35. "Rachel Harrison - Brides and Bases". Oakville Galleries. September 14, 2002.
  36. "Milwaukee Art Museum Annual Report 2003" (PDF). Milwaukee Art Museum. August 31, 2003.
  37. "Rachel Harrison – Posh Floored as Ali G Tackles Becks". Camden Art Center. January 31, 2004.
  38. "Arndt & Partner History". Arndt Fine Art. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  39. "Rachel Harrison - Lakta/Latkas". Greene Naftali. May 8, 2004.
  40. "New Work: Rachel Harrison", SFMoMA, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  41. "Rachel Harrison with Scott Lyall - When Hangover becomes Form". Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. March 31, 2006.
  42. "Rachel Harrison - Checking the Tires, Not To Mention The Marble Nude". Galerie Christian Nagel. May 5, 2006.
  43. "Rachel Harrison - If I Did It". Greene Naftali. February 23, 2007.
  44. "Rachel Harrison - Voyage of the Beagle". Migros Museum. April 28, 2007.
  45. "Rachel Harrison - Lay of the Land". Le Consortium. July 5, 2008.
  46. "Rachel Harrison - Sunny Side Up". Galerie Meyer Kainer. November 19, 2008.
  47. "Rachel Harrison: Consider the Lobster", CCS Bard, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  48. "Portikus Exhibition 163 Rachel Harrison HAYCATION" Archived 2014-09-03 at the Wayback Machine, Portikus, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  49. "Rachel Harrison Conquest of the Useless", Whitechapel Gallery, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  50. "Rachel Harrison - Asdfjkl;". Regen Projects. May 26, 2010.
  51. "Rachel Harrison with Scott Lyall - Double Yolk". Galerie Christan Nagel. March 20, 2011.
  52. "Rachel Harrison – Exhibitions – Greene Naftali". www.greenenaftaligallery.com. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  53. "Rachel Harrison - Villeperdue". Galerie Meyer Kainer. April 10, 2013.
  54. "Rachel Harrison - Fake Titel: Turquoise-Stained Altars for Burger Turner". S.M.A.K. September 6, 2013.
  55. "The Great Hall Exhibitions Archive: Rachel Harrison - Who Gave You This Number". Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. April 27, 2014.
  56. "Rachel Harrison – Exhibitions – Regen Projects". www.regenprojects.com. 7 April 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  57. "Gloria: Robert Rauschenberg & Rachel Harrison". Cleveland Museum of Art. July 1, 2015.
  58. "Rachel Harrison – Perth Amboy". The Museum of Modern Art. March 19, 2016.
  59. "Rachel Harrison – Depth Jump to Second Box". Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler. April 29, 2016.
  60. "Rachel Harrison - Prasine". Greene Naftali. April 28, 2017.
  61. "Rachel Harrison - House of Dolphins". Rat Hole Gallery. June 1, 2018.
  62. "Rachel Harrison Drawings". Greene Naftali. March 6, 2020.
  63. "New Photography 14: Jeanne Dunning, Olafur Eliasson, Rachel Harrison, Sam Taylor-Wood". The Museum of Modern Art. October 15, 1999.
  64. "Whitney Biennial 2002". Whitney Museum of American Art. March 7, 2002.
  65. ^ "La Biennale di Venezia - History: Recent years". La Biennale di Venezia. June 15, 2003.
  66. "2004 Carnegie International". Carnegie Museum of Art. October 9, 2004.
  67. "4th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art: "Of Mice and Men"". KW Institute for Contemporary Art. March 25, 2006.
  68. "Artist Rachel Harrison", Whitney Museum of American Art, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  69. "Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009". Tate. February 3, 2009.
  70. "The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today". The Museum of Modern Art. August 1, 2010.
  71. "Blues for Smoke". Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. October 12, 2012.
  72. "Rachel Harrison - Nasher XChange: Moore to the Point". Nasher Sculpture Center. October 19, 2013.
  73. "Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age". Museum Brandhorst. November 14, 2015.
  74. "Ordinary Pictures". Walker Art Center. February 27, 2016.
  75. "Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy". Metropolitan Museum of Art. September 18, 2018.
  76. "Jay DeFeo : The Ripple Effect".
  77. "Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019". Metropolitan Museum of Art. June 22, 2019.
  78. "Marcel Duchamp: The Barbara and Aaron Levine Collection". Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. June 19, 2020.
  79. "Rachel Harrison". Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  80. "Blanton Museum of Art Online Collections Database". collection.blantonmuseum.org. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  81. "Hans Haacke with Sculpture". Cleveland Museum of Art. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  82. "Rachel Harrison, Reno (2004)". Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  83. "Rachel Harrison, Pretty Discreet (1999)". Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  84. "Rachel Harrison". Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  85. "Rachel Harrison, The Fifth Shade (2004)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  86. "Rachel Harrison, Valid Like Salad (2012)", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  87. "Rachel Harrison, The Fifth Shade (2004)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  88. "Rachel Harrison, The Duck Hunter (2012)". Moderna Museet. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  89. "The Collection Rachel Harrison", Museum of Modern Art, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  90. "Rachel Harrison – Collection Online", Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  91. "Rachel Harrison". Tate. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  92. "Rachel Harrison". Walker Art Center. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  93. "Whitney Museum of American Art: Rachel Harrison", Whitney Museum of American Art, Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  94. "Herb Alpert Award in the Arts 2010: Rachel Harrison", Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  95. Pogrebin, Robin. "Calder Prize Awarded to American Artist", The New York Times, Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  96. "Anonymous Was A Woman Award: Past Recipients", Anonymous Was A Woman Award, Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  97. "Gold List Special Edition #5".
  98. "Rump Steak with Onions by Rachel Harrison", Triple Canopy, Retrieved 2 July 2021.

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