The Nasher Sculpture Center is pleased to reveal the plans for a newly commissioned object by artist Rachel Harrison that will be located in the heart of downtown at Dallas City Hall.
This project represents the artist’s first ever public art commission. Nasher XChange is the first museum organized, citywide art exhibition in the United States, which will be on view at 10 locations from October 19, 2013 through February 16, 2014, in celebration of the museum’s 10th anniversary.
Rachel Harrison is a New York-based artist known for using a wide variety of materials including a bevy of consumer products and found objects alongside abstract forms she creates by hand to create combinations of seemingly incongruous things.
For the Nasher XChange Harrison is fabricating a giant pink arrow to be installed in the plaza at City Hall in downtown Dallas. The arrow will point to an existing sculpture at the site, Henry Moore’s 1978 The Dallas Piece. Harrison's project grew out of a recent visit to Dallas City Hall during which she was surprised to see Moore's outdoor sculpture encircled by metal barricades. For Harrison the barricades recalled the metal stanchions now commonly found surrounding sculptures in museums, a peculiar feature Harrison has sometimes referred to in her own work. Following Harrison's inquiry about the Moore at City Hall the barricades around it were removed. Her giant arrow on the plaza calls attention not only to Moore's piece but to the barrier formerly around it and the conditions that frame our encounters with works of art.
Harrison’s project speaks moreover to the unique history of the site at Dallas City Hall. Built in 1978 I.M. Pei’s modernist landmark was part of a broader effort to reimagine the future of Dallas through bold city-planning in the years following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. In this sense Harrison’s intervention alludes almost by chance to Dallas’s tradition of design in the public realm and to the ways in which art has been sometimes imagined to support civic ends.
Rachel Harrison lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include CCS Bard/Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson (2009); Portikus, Frankfurt (2009); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2013); and S.M.A.K., Ghent (2013). Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam among many others.
Nasher XChange will extend the museum’s core mission beyond its walls and into Dallas’ diverse neighborhoods, alongside key community partners, to present advances in the rapidly expanding field of sculpture, raise the level of discourse on the subject within the city, and contribute to broader national and international conversations on public sculpture. As the only institution in the world exclusively dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and researching modern and contemporary sculpture, the Nasher Sculpture Center is uniquely positioned to investigate this growing practice of sculpture in the public realm. The Nasher has also commissioned Ruben Ochoa, Rick Lowe, Ugo Rondinone, Alfredo Jaar, Vicki Meek, Good/Bad Art Collective, Liz Larner, Charles Long, and Lara Almarcegui to create works for Nasher XChange.
About the Nasher Sculpture Center:
Open since 2003 and located in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, the Nasher Sculpture Center is home to one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary sculptures in the world, the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, featuring more than 300 masterpieces by Calder, Giacometti, Matisse, Picasso, Rodin, and more. The longtime dream of the late Raymond and Patsy Nasher, the museum was designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker.
Hailed by the "USA Today" as one of the great sculpture gardens where art enhances nature, the roofless museum seamlessly integrates the indoor galleries with the outdoor spaces creating a museum experience unlike any other in the world. On view in the light-filled galleries and amid the landscaped grounds are rotating works from the Collection, as well as blockbuster exhibitions and one-of-a-kind installations by the most celebrated artists of our times. In addition to the indoor and outdoor gallery spaces, the Center contains an auditorium, education and research facilities, a cafe, and a store.
The Nasher brings the best of contemporary culture to Dallas through special programs designed to engage visitors, including artist talks, lecture programs, contemporary music concerts, educational classes and exclusive member events.
The Nasher Sculpture Center is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm and until 11 pm for special events, and from 10 am to 5 pm on the first Saturday of each month. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for students, and free for members and children 12 and under, and includes access to special exhibitions. For more information, visit www.NasherSculptureCenter.org.
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