Harry Dodge

Harry Dodge (born 1966, San Francisco, California), also known as "Harriet "Harry" Dodge," a is an American sculptor, performer, video artist, and writer. He has exhibited internationally and was included in the 2014 "Made in L.A." Biennial at the Hammer Museum, "California Video" at the Getty Museum, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. His collaborative video work with Stanya Kahn, Can't Swallow It, Can't Spit It Out (2006), is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He is a current faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts.

Work

In the early 1990s, Dodge was one of the founders of and curators for the San Francisco community-based performance space, Red Dora's Bearded Lady Coffeehouse.[1] During this time he wrote, directed, and performed several evening-length, monologue-based performances, including "Muddy Little River" (1996) and "From Where I'm Sitting (I Can Only Reach Your Ass)" (1997); about the latter, the SF Guardian wrote: “Dodge is a performance genius, a whirligig, a punching bag registering blows self-inflicted by a corrosively lyrical imagination."[2] In the late 90s he co-wrote, directed, edited and starred in (with Silas Howard) a narrative feature film, By Hook or By Crook, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (2002), and received five Best Feature awards at various film festivals.[3] He also performed in the 2000 John Waters film Cecil B. Demented.[4]

In 2002 Dodge earned an MFA in Fine Art at the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College. From 2004 to 2008, while continuing to make solo work, he was half of a video-making collaboration with artist Stanya Kahn. Their collaborative work was exhibited in the 2008 Whitney Biennial.

Dodge’s solo and collaborative work has been exhibited at many venues nationally and internationally, including “Made in L.A.”, Hammer Museum, LA (2014); “Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy,” The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT; the 2008 Whitney Biennial, NYC; “Code Share: 5 continents, 10 biennales, 20 artists,” CAC Vilnius, Lithuania; the “Videonale 12,” Kunstalle Bonn, Bonn, Germany; “Slightly Unbalanced,” the Hartnett Museum, Richmond, Virginia; “Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video,” the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art; “Unusual Behavior,” Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara; “California Video,” Getty Museum, Los Angeles; “Laughing in a Foreign Language,” The Hayward, London; “Between Two Deaths,” ZKM/Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; “Eden's Edge,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; “Shared Women,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA; “Defamation of Character,” PS 1, Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, NY; Wallspace Gallery, New York, NY; among others. Dodge’s collaborative work with Stanya Kahn is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[5]

Critical Reception

In 2012, his solo show, “Frowntown,” at Wallspace Gallery in New York, was selected by Whitney Kimball at Art Fag City as #2 in her Top 10 Shows of 2012; Kimball called "Fred Can Never Be Called Bald" (one of the show’s videos) "close to a perfect work of art."[6] In her Critic’s Pick in Artforum, Meghan Heuer said this about the show: “The overflowing selection of drawings likewise exercises a masterful control over multiplicity as cartoons meet classified ads meet monochrome abstractions. In contrast, his sculptures direct their polymorphous semiotics through painterly assemblages of household items with erotic, sinister, and organic overtones.”[7]

References

  1. ↑ Warren, Nancy (March 30, 2001). "Tea Time at Red Dora's Cafe". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  2. ↑ By Hook or By Crook—Steakhaus Productions
  3. ↑ By Hook or by Crook (2001)—Internet Movie Database
  4. ↑ See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173716/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
  5. ↑ See http://www.wallspacegallery.com/artists.html?id=2,221&cv=1
  6. ↑ See http://artfcity.com/2013/01/03/afcs-top-10-whitney-kimball/
  7. ↑ Artforum

External links