Robert Harrison:
The Architecture of Space
Essays by Rick Newby & Glen R. Brown
Drumlummon Contemporary Artists Series
48 pages
$20
softcover
ISBN
0-9769684-2-8
To
order a copy of Robert Harrison: The Architecture
of Space, send $20, plus $2.50 shipping
& handling, to:
Drumlummon Institute
402 Dearborn Ave. #3
Helena, MT 59601
info@drumlummon.org
This catalog
accompanies the sculptor Robert Harrison's exhibition, The Architecture
of Space: Montana Vernacular, held at the Holter Museum of Art,
Helena, MT, January 30-May 3, 2009. Includes two essays, by critics
Rick Newby and Glen R. Brown, on Harrison's gallery installations and
site-specific sculptures in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Illustrated with more than two hundred color images.
The need to personalize space and, above all, to compel it to speak in human terms, has never faded from consciousness. . . . Whether revering it in the silence of a spiritual embrace or dominating it in the interests of an abstract idea of progress, the human inclination is to mark the earth, to disrupt its alien continuity by imposing the physical evidence of human values on its previously uniform countenance.
Canadian-born sculptor Robert Harrison has reflected upon this apparently primal impulse for more than twenty-five years, studying ancient monuments from Stonehenge to the pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá and designing his own site-specific works to acknowledge patterns in the heavens, respond to environmental forces, and converse on visual terms with the surrounding landscape.
—Glen
R. Brown, from his essay,
"Robert
Harrison: Of Marks and Boundaries"
Robert
Harrison holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Ceramics. He has
taught ceramics at the university level and held administrative positions
in ceramic programs both in Canada (the Banff Centre for the Arts) and
the USA. He serves on the Board of NCECA (National Council on Education
for the Ceramic Arts), currently as Past President, and has served on
the Board of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena,
Montana, as President.
Well
known for his large scale architectural sculpture, Harrison continues
to evolve and exhibit smaller-scale studio works. His interests in history
and world cultures have provided numerous opportunities to work and
travel abroad. His work is represented in many public and private collections,
nationally and internationally. In 2001 he was elected to the International
Academy of Ceramics (IAC), based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2007 he
was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA), and in 2008,
he was awarded the Meloy Stevenson Award of Excellence from the Archie
Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts.
Harrison makes his home in Helena, Montana.