FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Regen Projects and Regen Projects II
633 North Almont Drive and 9016 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424 Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com
RACHEL HARRISON: ASDFJKL;
May 27- July 10, 2010
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 6 pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 27, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by New York artist Rachel Harrison. Her practice includes sculpture, painting, collage, photography, video and installation. Harrison's work is consistently layered, creating a multiplicity of meaning and perspectives with which to engage the work both visually and conceptually. Investigating space, time, and context, the works redefine existing terms between images and forms while positing alternate relationships to consider. Playing with color, objecthood and language, Harrison constitutes analogies that lead to new thoughts and investigations.
"Think of Harrison's concerted mixture of mediums – of sculpture and painting, of sculpture and photography – not as a post-medium assertion announcing a generalized indistinction of form, but of a propping of one form upon another, one medium locating its possibilities for continuance in another, in excess of the other… Think of the linked aesthetic experiences of Harrison's sculpture, of its concerted amalgam of abstraction and representation, of image and object. Think, finally, of the possibilities for a sculpture that extends not just from other mediums, like photography, but can prop itself upon entirely other social spaces, other social systems – the commodity and shopping, costumes and celebrity, even politics, even history."
Baker, George, "Mind the Gap." Parkett No. 82 (2008): 146-148
The exhibition, entitled Asdfjkl;, presents six sculptural works composed of statuesque abstract forms painted and combined with readymade objects. These sculptures are complex amalgamations that resemble monuments but are completely non-referential. The title, Asdfjkl;, describes the standard placement of one's fingers when typing. It is mentally tactile, as it speaks to the moment when one is just about to touch an object, or when one's fingers have just had that physical encounter. The rapidly changing relationship to writing produced by the aid of machines is central to this title (the artist grew up without texting and is still not that good at it). Structural Design is a sculpture whose components are a Royal typewriter and painted forms balancing on the edge of the typewriter's case, teetering in a moment between gravity and expression.
"And if Harrison's sculpture is so caught up in this chaos of signs and surface effects it's precisely because it's so serious about space: in a time when space and image lose their distinction, and the old, ideal distance between viewer and object is always already filled up and occupied by a thousand communications, sculpture, too, finds ways of making itself multi-surfaced and schizo-temporal. In order to re-occupy our contemporary no-space, it trades in its timeless pose for a temporary one, or for a manic series of appearances."
Kelsey, John, "Sculpture in an Abandoned Field," If I Did It (2007): 121-122.
In addition to sculptural works, Harrison will exhibit the third incarnation of her Voyage of the Beagle series, whose title references the journals of Charles Darwin. As a collection of equally sized photographic images of figurative form, the Voyage of the Beagle ranges in subject matter from religious icons to moustachioed mannequins. Composed in a horizontal configuration, the work creates forced relationships between disparate objects. Singular portraits are further re-contextualized in a body of collaged and painted drawings. Accompanied by her video American Apparel, these works continue to examine subjectivity's relation to history and popular culture.
Harrison's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include Consider the Lobster, Center for Curatorial Studies, Hessel Museum Bard College, New York; HAYCATION, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Conquest of the Useless, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England. Her work was included in the 50th and 53rd Venice Bienniale and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Monographs on her work include If I Did It and most recently Museum with Walls.
An opening reception for Rachel Harrison will take place on Thursday, May 27, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. For further information please contact Heather Harmon, Jennifer Loh or Stacy Bengtson at the gallery.
Regen Projects and Regen Projects II
633 North Almont Drive and 9016 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424 Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com
RACHEL HARRISON: ASDFJKL;
May 27- July 10, 2010
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 6 pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 27, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by New York artist Rachel Harrison. Her practice includes sculpture, painting, collage, photography, video and installation. Harrison's work is consistently layered, creating a multiplicity of meaning and perspectives with which to engage the work both visually and conceptually. Investigating space, time, and context, the works redefine existing terms between images and forms while positing alternate relationships to consider. Playing with color, objecthood and language, Harrison constitutes analogies that lead to new thoughts and investigations.
"Think of Harrison's concerted mixture of mediums – of sculpture and painting, of sculpture and photography – not as a post-medium assertion announcing a generalized indistinction of form, but of a propping of one form upon another, one medium locating its possibilities for continuance in another, in excess of the other… Think of the linked aesthetic experiences of Harrison's sculpture, of its concerted amalgam of abstraction and representation, of image and object. Think, finally, of the possibilities for a sculpture that extends not just from other mediums, like photography, but can prop itself upon entirely other social spaces, other social systems – the commodity and shopping, costumes and celebrity, even politics, even history."
Baker, George, "Mind the Gap." Parkett No. 82 (2008): 146-148
The exhibition, entitled Asdfjkl;, presents six sculptural works composed of statuesque abstract forms painted and combined with readymade objects. These sculptures are complex amalgamations that resemble monuments but are completely non-referential. The title, Asdfjkl;, describes the standard placement of one's fingers when typing. It is mentally tactile, as it speaks to the moment when one is just about to touch an object, or when one's fingers have just had that physical encounter. The rapidly changing relationship to writing produced by the aid of machines is central to this title (the artist grew up without texting and is still not that good at it). Structural Design is a sculpture whose components are a Royal typewriter and painted forms balancing on the edge of the typewriter's case, teetering in a moment between gravity and expression.
"And if Harrison's sculpture is so caught up in this chaos of signs and surface effects it's precisely because it's so serious about space: in a time when space and image lose their distinction, and the old, ideal distance between viewer and object is always already filled up and occupied by a thousand communications, sculpture, too, finds ways of making itself multi-surfaced and schizo-temporal. In order to re-occupy our contemporary no-space, it trades in its timeless pose for a temporary one, or for a manic series of appearances."
Kelsey, John, "Sculpture in an Abandoned Field," If I Did It (2007): 121-122.
In addition to sculptural works, Harrison will exhibit the third incarnation of her Voyage of the Beagle series, whose title references the journals of Charles Darwin. As a collection of equally sized photographic images of figurative form, the Voyage of the Beagle ranges in subject matter from religious icons to moustachioed mannequins. Composed in a horizontal configuration, the work creates forced relationships between disparate objects. Singular portraits are further re-contextualized in a body of collaged and painted drawings. Accompanied by her video American Apparel, these works continue to examine subjectivity's relation to history and popular culture.
Harrison's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include Consider the Lobster, Center for Curatorial Studies, Hessel Museum Bard College, New York; HAYCATION, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Conquest of the Useless, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England. Her work was included in the 50th and 53rd Venice Bienniale and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Monographs on her work include If I Did It and most recently Museum with Walls.
An opening reception for Rachel Harrison will take place on Thursday, May 27, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. For further information please contact Heather Harmon, Jennifer Loh or Stacy Bengtson at the gallery.