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Rachel Harrison

Rachel Harrison

31349 ca object representations media 6841 publiclarge
Rachel Harrison

Roles in Archive: Artist

b. 1966, New York City, New York/Lives and works in New York City, New York

In Rachel Harrison’s sculptures, signifiers of pop art and pop culture are embedded within larger minimalist forms, teasing out relationships between aesthetics and mediums that are seemingly at odds with one another. Integrating photography into her sculptures, Harrison’s works remind the viewer of the space between the physical experience of a three-dimensional object and the representational mode of photography. The awkward but poignant combination of disparate artistic ideologies is further expressed in the tension between the details that incorporate mass-produced or kitschy objects, like fan magazines and costume jewelry, and the artist’s lumpy treatment of the sculptural surface. Many of Harrison’s works reveal their internal structures of Styrofoam, plywood, cement, and papier-mâché, forcing process into dialogue with artistic movements (e.g., pop and minimalism) that are typically mechanically rendered. Harrison earned a BFA from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (1989). Her solo exhibitions include Migros Museum für Gegenwart Kunst, Zurich (2007); If I Did It Greene Naftali Gallery, New York (2007); Checking the Tires, Not to Mention the Marble Nude Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne (2006); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2004); Posh Floored as Ali G. Tackles Beck Camden Art Center, London (2004); Lakta/Latkas Greene Naftali Gallery, New York (2004); Bergen Kunsthalle, Norway (2003); Currents 30: Rachel Harrison Milwaukee Art Museum (2002, catalogue); Brides and Bases Oakville Gallery, Toronto (2002, catalogue); and Perth Amboy Greene Naftali Gallery, New York (2001). Group exhibitions featuring Harrison’s art include 4th Berlin Biennial (2006); 54th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2004, catalogue); Make It Now: New Sculpture in New York Sculpture Center, New York (2005, catalogue); Slouching Towards Bethlehem The Project, New York (2004); The Structure of Survival 50th Venice Biennale (2003, catalogue); Whitney Biennial 2002, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002, catalogue); Building Structures P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2002); Walker Evans and Company+, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2000, catalogue).