Rachel Harrison Assorted Varieties
November 19, 2021 - January 8, 2022
Main Gallery
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Installation view of Rachel Harrison: Assorted Varieties, Corbett vs. Dempsey, November 19, 2021 - January 8, 2022. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay.
Rachel Harrison, Legendary Red, 2021, wood, steel, polystyrene, cement, cardboard, chicken wire, wool blanket, acrylic, and Rice Chex cereal box, Part 1: 96 x 44 x 36 inches, Part 2: 2 1/2 x 48 x 51 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Installation view of Rachel Harrison: Assorted Varieties, Corbett vs. Dempsey, November 19, 2021 - January 8, 2022. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay.
Rachel Harrison, Curious Yellow Stud, 2021, steel, glass fiber reinforced concrete, and acrylic, 98 x 21 x 22 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Installation view of Rachel Harrison: Assorted Varieties, Corbett vs. Dempsey, November 19, 2021 - January 8, 2022. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay.
Rachel Harrison, Standard Blue, 2021, wood, polystyrene, cardboard, cement, acrylic, enamel, sandbag, and Classic MyPillow pillow, 75 1/2 x 44 1/5 x 42 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Installation view of Rachel Harrison: Assorted Varieties, Corbett vs. Dempsey, November 19, 2021 - January 8, 2022. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Nathan Keay.
Rachel Harrison, Cherry Pie, 2021, dye sublimation print on aluminum, 13 x 19 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Rachel Harrison, A Firestorm, 2014, framed Post-it Notes, 12 1/2 x 25 1/8 x 1/2 inches (framed). Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Rachel Harrison, Photograph, 2020, pigmented inkjet print, 17 x 22 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Rachel Harrison, Assorted Varieties, 2021, wood, plexiglass, cardboard, cement, acrylic, enamel, wax crayon, iPod Nano, and pigmented inkjet print, 64 3/8 x 31 1/4 x 25 1/4 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Rachel Harrison, Assorted Varieties, 2021, wood, plexiglass, cardboard, cement, acrylic, enamel, wax crayon, iPod Nano, and pigmented inkjet print, 64 3/8 x 31 1/4 x 25 1/4 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photo: Tim Nighswander / IMAGING4ART.
Press Release
Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present Assorted Varieties, an exhibition of new work by Rachel Harrison. This is the gallery's first solo show with Harrison and the artist's first gallery presentation in Chicago.
In Assorted Varieties, Harrison unveils four major sculptures and three wall works. Of these large-scale pieces, three are in theory monochromatic – red, blue, and yellow. However, their variegated hues almost chide the idea of the monochrome, revealing a subtle pandemonium of shades and temperatures residing in craggy surfaces, torqued volumes, and inset objects. The wall works roughly map onto the color scheme of the sculptures, recast in different media – a framed set of post-it notes, an enigmatic abstract photograph (titled Photograph), and a blown-up screen grab of a frozen cherry pie with associated Tweet. Everything in Harrison's artistic ecosystem is buzzing with latent meaning – nothing is arbitrary, and nothing is obvious.
Since emerging on the international art scene in the 1990s, New York-based artist Rachel Harrison has built a critically incisive oeuvre consisting of work in various media. The subject of an acclaimed survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2019, Harrison is most widely known for her masterful and irreverent sculptural work, which incorporates an ingenious formal sense within an apparent (but illusory) defiance of formalism. As art historian David Joselit has succinctly written, she "makes sculptures that defy description." The work is sensuous and strategic, serious and uproarious, self-referential and wildly omnivorous, ranging across historical points of reference drawn from both fine art and popular culture.
Opening reception will be held Friday, November 19th from 5pm-7pm.