Note Type
RemarksNote
Chronology Excerpt:
“Harris begins working in string, a lightweight, dynamic mode and milieu he will continue until 1962 and may have been a creative extension of a loom he used in the family home in New Jersey. This period marks the beginning of his use, later seen in his cloth and fabric sculptures, of non-traditional sculptural materials. Curator and critic Leah Triplett, whose curatorial practice looks at the ways in which contemporary and historical artists incorporate soft materials to offer novel ways of merging material with expression, argues that ‘as critics grappled with the aesthetics and range of materials used by postmodernist sculptors, Harris—himself a postmodernist who wove wit, playfulness, and illusion into his work—continued to exploit the emotional possibilities of softness. For this, he was among a vanguard of artists across the U.S. manipulating fabric, string, and batting through deskilled or sophisticated needlework and weaving.’ Produces his first ‘collapsible monument,’ <i>Instrument and Strings</i> (1955), a volumetric eight-foot-tall sculpture made with string and metal hoops suspended from the ceiling.”