Rachel Harrison: Sitting in a Room

Book Launch: Rachel Harrison: Sitting in a Room
Texts Negar Azimi, Anne Dressen, Lars Bang Larsen, Solveig Øvstebø
Editors Rachel Harrison, Solveig Øvstebø
Design Joseph Logan
Published by Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, and Gregory R. Miller & Co, New York, 2023
Hardcover, 231 pages
ISBN 978-82-93654-20-9

Sitting in a Room highlights the recent work of New York-based artist Rachel Harrison (born 1966), who takes a porous, hybrid approach to objects both made and found. Spanning mediums that include sculpture, drawing, photography, and painting, Harrison’s nimble, layered method has always escaped easy categorization. Abstraction is shot through with vernacular references to jarring, often comic effect, as formalist concerns are forced to vie with rogue elements from the outside world.

Published on occasion of her exhibition at Astrup Fearnley Museet, this volume—which takes its name from a seminal work of sound art by Alvin Lucier—contains installation photographs from Sitting in a Room as well as detailed visual documentation of Harrison’s work across a wide range of artistic expressions. The exhibition is on view until February 12th, 2023.

The publication is available for purchase through our website.

Lecture: Lars Bang Larsen on Rachel Harrison
Thursday, January 19th, 2023, 6pm
Astrup Fearnley Museet

Astrup Fearnley Museet is proud to announce a lecture by art historian Lars Bang Larsen on Rachel Harrison’s work in conjunction with the launch of the publication Rachel Harrison: Sitting in a Room.

The exhibition foregrounds Rachel Harrison's attention to the location and historical conditions of display. Each gallery is conceived by the artist as a distinct setting—Sculpture Court, Town Square, Gym, Living Room, and Cabinet—that places the viewer in contexts at once intimate and public. The artworks are staged as dynamic actors that create dialogue with each other as well as with the audience. What types of perceptions, meanings, and communities can arise through these constellations?

Lars Bang Larsen’s lecture is based on his catalogue essay, “When Nature Has Had Its Day, Justice Might Prevail,” and focuses on how Harrison twists and turns reality and its representations through dialogues with the social realm and works of other artists.

The talk will not be livestreamed, but it will be made available on Astrup Fearnley Museet’s website and YouTube channel soon after the event.

Lars Bang Larsen is a writer, curator, and Head of Art and Research at Art Hub Copenhagen. Prior to this, among numerous professional engagements, he was affiliated with Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Haute école d’art et de design, Geneva; Kungliga Konsthögskolan, Stockholm; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.  

Upcoming exhibitions at Astrup Fearnley Museet
Basel Abbas / Ruanne Abou-Rahme: An echo buried deep deep down but calling still
March 10–May 28, 2023

Anniversary exhibition: Astrup Fearnley Museet 30 Years
June 22–October 1, 2023