the Cooper Union School of Art Interdisciplinary Seminar

Rachel Harrison

explanation as composition

This lecture took place on September 15th, 2009 at 7:00 pm in the Rose Auditorium at the Cooper Union

Lecture introduction

The artist will discuss her work while addressing the structure of an artist’s lecture and what it means to discuss one’s own work publicly.  Topics will include nervousness, fear and doubt. 

About Rachel Harrison

Rachel Harrison was born in New York, NY in 1966.  An exhibition of her work is currently on view at the Hessel Museum, Bard College, New York through December. She exhibits internationally, recent solo exhibition titles include Sunny Side Up, Lay of the Land, Voyage of the Beagle, If I Did It, Checking the Tires, Not To Mention the Marble Nude, and Posh Floored as Ali G Tackles Becks.  Her work is in numerous museum collections and has been included in international surveys such as Making Worlds, the 53rd Venice Biennale(2009); Altermodern: Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London(2009); 2008 and 2002 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Unmonumental: Falling To Pieces in the 21st Century, New Museum, New York(2007); The Uncertainty of Objects and Ideas: Recent Sculpture, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.(2006); Of Mice and Men, the 4th Berlin Biennale, KW Institute, Berlin(2006); Carnegie International(2005); and The 50th Venice Biennale(2003).  Each time she is invited to be in a big international group show she wonders if they are just empty spectacles where the actual art is secondary to the prestige of the curator and the general public’s feeling towards contemporary art.

Relevant Links

• Readings for this lecture are available on the student login page.