S.M.A.K. presents Rachel Harrison Fake Titel: Turquoise-Stained Altars for Burger Turner on view through 5 January 2014. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of her generation, Harrison simultaneously undermines and reaffirms multiple layers of sculptural histories, employing slapstick humour and a sense of tragicomedy. The exhibition at S.M.A.K. in Ghent is a joint venture with the kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, where an earlier version was presented in summer 2013.
Fake Titel interweaves three distinct bodies of work: sculptures and drawings from Harrison’s 2012 exhibition The Help, the suite of photographs titled Sunset Series (2000–2012) and a revised, architecturally scaled installation Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (2011–2013).
The sculptures and drawings from The Help examine the entangled roles of the artist, the muse, and the help. The title comes from a photograph the artist took of the maintenance door of Duchamp’s final work, Étant Donnés (1946–1966). The Sunset Series comprises thirty-one photographs of a single source image, a photograph of a sunset. In each photograph, shot on 35mm film, the artist physically manipulates the found snapshot to create a new image. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan incorporates an array of used pedestals traversing several rooms with sculptures and video by Harrison, as well as works by other artists. Situated between exhibition device and sculpture, it recalls Marcel Broodthaers and his approaches to institutional critique; as well as issues of cliché, cultural identity and ownership. Harrison integrated multiples by Marcel Duchamp and Yves Klein in addition to further work from S.M.A.K.’s collection by Asger Jorn, Pjeroo Roobjee, Laura Owens and Meret Oppenheim. Oppenheim’s Sommergestirn (1963) might serve as secret map of the exhibition, whereas Owens’s large sunrise, Untitled (2000), could mark its entrance.
The accompanying publication Rachel Harrison. Fake Titel contains texts by Diedrich Diederi
S.M.A.K.
Museum for Contemporary Art
Citadelpark, Ghent
Belgium
www.smak.be