7/29/2006

Rachel Harrison





60 comments:

Sven said...

I get annoyed at puns sometimes...

no-where-man said...

all three of these piss me off, like rubber puke.

cha said...

no like.....

jeff said...

beam me up scottie!

kelli said...

like the art equivalent of people who giggle during sex. some people think that is fun. others think it ruins the whole thing.

Mark Creegan said...

I find her juxtaposition of photography and sculpture brilliant. I do think much of her work if “fun” (she once used several bear-shaped jars of honey), but I think it is intelligent as well-- a rawness and elegance at the same time.

dubz said...

big fan. the last show @ greene naftali wasn't my favorite; and i agree with some of the comments about these being too cute and/or clever. they seem to be one-liners... but the joke is on the materials rather than being some kind of accumulated or decisive social commentary. remember the grapefruit in the cement cube at the armory? the bike sculpture @ paula cooper last summer! the one at casey caplan right now. her new figurative/pose thing is the right direction i think.

no-where-man said...

the ad reinhardt's at the FULL HOUSE show were described as "they make me laugh, not out loud but in my head - right now i am laughing in my head". (perhaps a nod to the comic-strip)

'''

Using formal composition as a means of playing visual ‘dress up’, Harrison’s ‘figure’ is loaded with suggestive puns and sexual innuendo, creating the suggestion of an unsavoury celebrity diva: built like a ‘brick shithouse’, with legs that ‘go all the way up’!

i am pukeing like in my head.

kelli said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
kelli said...

Anti-giggling myself but then am also anti-talking. Find the tern brick shithouse strangely unerotic.
Name the middle-aged perverts from Kawashima thread was conclusively decided:
Frito-Laid

zipthwung said...

Been pulling the pages appart on my name escapes me art book - dude with the collosal shit of everyday objects - I cant read for shit. Some kind of aphasia or something.

I'm ready for a long cool glass of kinkaide readymade or some shit.

Cusje Van brugen - thats his name.

WHat I like about the description is that its all about how they were mulling things over - how they got the idea and shit.

For example, they would take into account the history of the place - in the same way an architect will have a dialogue with the context - for example a poet who writes poetry about quotidian objects may have a co-ed dorm named after them, then the artist would have their engineer make a quotidian object like a toothbrush to put in front of it - that one got rejected because it was the conservative reagan era, or maybe it was ugly and there was a bitter rivalry amongst the whatyacallems.

Is this work any worse, conceptually, than Rachel Whitread?

Who's the dude that has the floor pieces that read like rebuses? Or the dude with the shit brown sculptures? Paula cooper or the other lady next door.

In conclusion - isnt it more about attitude than cleverness? I mean who would you rather be, Carrie Nation or Susan B. Anthony?

zipthwung said...

Harry Truman was a 33rd degree mason - I hjusat learned - I think that means you get all your drinks comped at the lodge.

triple diesel said...

Ad Reinhardt's other contribution is the claim that “Sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting.”

no-where-man said...

TD he did not say that, himself it was a comment on his work.

dubz "ad reinhardt was a monkey" - please explain,

dubz said...

monkey = someone who says "art is too serious to be taken seriously" while claiming that painting was over because he made a bunch of black canvases. i just think he was so full of shit.

he is the also one who made the sculpture comment, BTW. classic dipshit move.

triple diesel said...

no-where-man:

Not a big deal, but:
http://www.mcachicago.org/westermanncurriculum/right/looking_at_sculpture.html

But you are welcome to disabuse us.

kelli said...

Jackson Pollock was the chimp in the house. Seriously he even looked like the missing link. Scat art is purely a twentieth century artifact.

dubz said...

all those dudes were kind of sharing a brain. or ego, whatever. they should have given ed harris more of an occipital ridge.

youth--less said...

one would think that bellmer dolls were 20th cent artifacts too, but i guess not.

obviously i love chimps --and elephants too

triple diesel said...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8MZeiBq3Irw&search=chimp

Sorry to dwell off-topic - couldn't help it.

no-where-man said...

sorry TD i am the worlds worst writer, i ment that he did not say..
"they make me laugh, not out loud but in my head - right now i am laughing in my head"

and that his claims at anything were tougue in cheek when read in the context of his comic's

Art is Play

How to look at Art

rules for a new academy

he hardly viewed sculpture as an exhulted medium

no-where-man said...

sorry that should have read painting as an exhulted medium.

kelli said...

His different types of artists were pretty funny: I myself am a hard-to-get Gertie. I have mixed feelings about humor in art including these sculptures. I know it's an old thing in art, medeival manuscripts of the damned being fed pork chops by demons and what not. But still, I can't take funny art seriously.

Sven said...

but you like Ensor right?

http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/italian/gadda/Media/arts/ensorselfportrait.jpg

couldn't think of too many good examples...

zipthwung said...

Speaking of monkeys - I'd like to submit that this work apes sculptural concerns of yore, thus confronting the contradictory urges to code meaning as part of your ART and simultaneously CRITIQUE the INSTITUTION (THe pre-existing and exclusionary IN GROUP).

Even when THEY let YOU IN you may still wish to bite the hand that feeds you. THis is called "having your cake and eating it too."

No bite no bark no teeth.

Whats the difference between a duck?

One leg is both the same.

Sven said...

I'm being too predictable with my examples but also L'age Dor and Un Chien Andalou both are hilarious at times and still stellar as art.
contemps:Alex Bag? I havent seen her best stuff so I can't call it.

zipthwung said...

cornball

I sneered at the sun today.

no-where-man said...

alex bag made me realize that the paris hilton video was fine with out all the 'arting it up' so i downloaded it transfered it to dvd and gave it to finch.

kelli said...

Sorry to go all South Park on you all but flatulence was a humorous theme in medieval art:
http://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/artics99/graf5.jpg

still, funny art, just not feeling it
Ensor, Beckman: more like dark humor

triple diesel said...

Is anybody funnier than David Shrigley?

kelli said...

and the funny stuff in manuscripts was "marginalia" not the main deal

zipthwung said...

At his best shrigley is good - I dont know of anyone funnier but there are plenty who are as funny. Not all of them are artists though.

Book Description

This is the first publication in English of the anthology that contains Breton's definitive statement on l'humour noir, one of the seminal concepts of Surrealism, and his provocative assessments of the writers he most admired. While some of the authors featured in the Anthology of Black Humor are already well known to American readers-Swift, Kafka, Rimbaud, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and Baudelaire among them (and even then, Breton's selections are often surprising)-many others are sure to come as a revelation.

The entries range from the acerbic aphorisms of Swift, Lichtenberg, and Duchamp to the theatrical slapstick of Christian Dietrich Grabbe, from the wry missives of Rimbaud and Jacques Vache to the manic paranoia of Dali, from the ferocious iconoclasm of Alfred Jarry and Arthur Craven to the offhand hilarity of Apollinaire at his most spontaneous. For each of the forty-five authors included, Breton has provided an enlightening biographical and critical preface, situating both the writer and the work in the context of black humor-a partly macabre, partly ironic, and often absurd turn of spirit that Breton defined as "a superior revolt of the mind."

dubz said...

i can get into funny art when it's twisted and original; like humor is a flaw or a nervous reaction. i admit that harrison's seem too premeditated, but i still think she comes up with some pretty unique forms. and like onesock said early on - her use of photography is really what made her stand out from the beginning. i'd just like to see them rely less on juxtaposition.

no-where-man said...

i went to look him up on Kern site to make a really dry joke about space vs. size of piece and i got this...


Warning: mysql_fetch_assoc(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/content/w/e/b/website123/html/artists/artists.php on line 51


kelly likes shoes

no-where-man said...

TD, so where do we stand on AR then?

poppy said...

quick response to wades first comment
that was funny..
in agreement

kelli said...

No-Where-Man are you saying I like shoes or a different Kelly cause every Sunday Kelley Walker and I give each other a foot massage with hot oil. Sometimes he lets me paint his toenails but only when man-sandal season is over.

poppy said...

I find it hard to call AR a monkey
someone trying to follow ridiculous logic will conclude ridiculous things..
maybe lesson learned?

no-where-man said...

from earlier on here and on consumer fetish likes

kelli said...

ok scratch that then. I go to church with Janine Antoni. She likes to masticate the wafers.

Dennis Matthews said...

Bonnie Collura anyone?
http://www.inglettgallery.com/a-collura_works.html

triple diesel said...

no-where-man, we stand on his shoulders.

no-where-man said...

agreed.

zipthwung said...

wade said...
How to fix these:

1. Crush in giant trash compactor
2. Dump into tub of paint
3. Spread on Canvas

OR 3: Mould around cocaine bricks and ship to your summer home.

kelli said...

Chico do tell
Is it like that thing where comedians go home, get wasted and puke on their dog.
I like tragedy. People are like jawbreakers-it's better to have the black on the outside.

kelli said...

Sometimes the opposite is true. People who wouldn't say hello to you on the street or at openings or even make eye contact suddenly being friendly when they think you are worthwhile. I'm actually fairly nice but look mean.

zipthwung said...

form follows function as frank loyd wright said - I have a nice dangly glow thing that attracts food.

Rachel harrison was part of a smug panel discussion I saw. I dont remember much except that she thought her students weren't interested in art history.(general laughter).

this applies to the recent sculpture stuff I think. I like it because it has the carpet I want. Im a sucker for pop references.

youth--less said...

Hey I love that. Thats a painting or a digital image? Good girl!

I tried to get the kids to watch the shining, but they said it was too slow.

zipthwung said...

....facile unresolved plains to set up some dummy space using patterns copped from interior decor....easy cheesy...but then again whats so good about some kitchy reference to eastern religion?

oooh, all is Maya, all is illusion, gimme a fucking break. No wonder kids hate history. No mystery left.

Speaking of too slow - in order to fully appreciate the art you have to get people to slow down. You cant just go for the inner sanctum right away. here

notice how the Celestial room is hard to get to? What if the Celestial room was all the way in the front? What if the inner sanctum had a crummy bathroom?

Also, check this

who needs a velvet rope when you have a solid gold chain?

youth--less said...

facile...must be why I like it.

But really I just dig on interpenetration. It's sexy. And the way she did it while still throwing down those drips to emphasize the surface. Thrilling.

Solid gold chain can be so very dull, like cheating on yr wife with Ethel Merman must be. Velvet rope never fails to excite. But hitting the sweet spot, doing exactly the right thing? Heaven.

Professor Mouth said...

Chicomacho said:

'instead of being nice back, i got arrogant im too special for you too be talking too me attitude....its cool though, while i have moved on to a bigger and better gallery, she is still at shitty greene naftali'

Wow, good for you, you little scorekeeper, you. How pathetic is it that you have to brag about how big your gallery is on a site filled with complete strangers? Eeeew.

Yeah, she has an attitude... anyone with half a brain would prefer an artist with attitude over all the bland professionals being churned out by the Grad School Machine each year. I'll bet you that Rachel is SO much more fun than you, and so much more genuine than you, and such a completely superior artist to you. I bet you ten bucks.

Guess you owe me ten bucks, fuckwit.

Professor Mouth said...

And can someone here agree with me that zipthwung is about as interesting as a wet fart? Go back to your creative writing workshop, poopsmith.

kelli said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
zipthwung said...

Professor mouth, please return to your bridge, there are three goats there who need your attention.

Be carefull who you insult on the way down - you may see them on the way up.

kelli said...

Chico I can sort of see both perspectives. After I found a gallery a person who for years had stopped saying hello to me on the street came up to me when I was talking to a collector and totally worked both of us over, talking about her website and how she was looking for a gallery. He was pretty uncomfortable but I was nice to her. The thing is I'd seen her at openings for years after school without eye contact or a hello ( more like a sneer). Karma is a bitch. There is no point to being nasty.
A lot of people enjoy Zip's comments including me.

zipthwung said...

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."


And in the darkness find them.

kelli said...

Bonus track on this CD
-envy and resentment from people who have never had a day job, don't NEED to sell work, live in lofts their parents pay for and use the studio space primarily for keggers

Professor Mouth said...

Who is kelli talking about?

Chicomacho thinks KARMA is responsible for careers? Seriously? Oh my... Bwahahahahahah, that's fucking precious. Wow. Hahahahahah.... What a frighteningly self-serving and smug way to view the universe. When Chico's gallery dumps him(her?) three years from now, will it be because he (she?) is a bad person? I suspect Chico's belief in Karma will end there. Just a guess.

Zip, your pretentiousness continues to set the bar high. And keep in mind, this is a site about New York artists!

kelli said...

Karma is no joke. The problem with stabbing backs is you can't stab all the backs. The problem with kissing ass is you can't kiss all the asses and you never know who might help you years down the road. It could even be artists you genuinely admired and liked not just people you thought were useful. And if you treat someone like garbage for years don't expect them to share their good karma with you. All I know is after keeping a Family Guy DVD the postman accidentally delivered I've had years of lost mail. But damn I love Family Guy.

zipthwung said...

"And keep in mind, this is a site about New York artists!"

What does that mean? Do I have to live in NYC? Do I have to be an artist? What if Im not an artist? Do i get my MFA revoked?

I live offshore.
Does it make any difference if you get your money from Phillip Morris or UNICEF? What is the right livelihood? WHat would Confucius do? Lets all get together and fight injustice ok? You first.