{"id":25057,"date":"2014-03-10T13:23:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T19:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=25057"},"modified":"2018-12-13T13:28:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T19:28:26","slug":"trent-harris-at-umoca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/trent-harris-at-umoca\/","title":{"rendered":"Trent Harris at UMOCA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"trentharris\"
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Not many filmmakers receive solo exhibitions in art museums. Trent Harris, however, is unlike most filmmakers. The Utah native is best known outside of his home state, where he maintains a cult following around the globe. As opposed to more traditional filmmakers, his work is highly experimental, allowing for elaboration in a variety of artistic mediums.\u00a0Echo Cave,\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Harris\u2019 solo show at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), stems from a desire to interact with his works outside the standard film festival format\u2014uncovering film\u2019s role in engendering multiple creative expressions and perspectives.<\/p>\n

As the creator of over 100 films, Trent Harris has a legion of loyal fans keenly aware of his contribution to avant-garde cinema. UMOCA views Harris as a legitimate, albeit marginalized, voice in the local art scene. Aaron Moulton, UMOCA\u2019s former Senior Curator, developed an interest in Harris quickly after arriving in the state, \u201cI became friends with Trent upon moving to Utah. I collaborated with [him] when we had the artist Constant Dullaart organize a performance night. From then on it was a natural dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

UMOCA\u2019s first Utah Biennial (2013) continued this collaboration and made a concerted effort to introduce Harris\u2019s work to Utah audiences. The Biennial took its title from Harris\u2019s book\u00a0Mondo Utah<\/em>\u00a0and constituted, according to Moulton, of \u201ca structural appropriation of Trent\u2019s book and a way to think about regionalism and\u00a0the folkloric in an exhibition form.\u201d After the biennial, an ensuing exhibition devoted to Harris\u2019s work seemed fitting, as Moulton states, \u201cThe biennial became about setting a stage and stoking a context for digging deeper into a practice like Trent\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echo Cave<\/em>\u00a0delivers on its premise. It is a fitting portrait and a genuine attempt to bolster Harris\u2019s reputation in his home state. Not only has Harris\u2019s work long been misunderstood in Utah, but as Moulton puts it, \u201cit\u2019s important for cultural institutions to remind us who we are and to sensitively unearth the parts of us that we\u2019ve forgotten. Sometimes it\u2019s about varying degrees of visual literacy and whether it\u2019s something or someone\u2019s time to be understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echo Cave<\/em>\u00a0makes spirited selections from Harris\u2019s long and diverse career, bringing to our attention the many recycled characters, motifs and symbols that accumulate in his body of work.<\/p>\n

Harris\u2019s biography is inherently woven into his work. An entire wall of the exhibition is dedicated to mapping Harris\u2019s development as a filmmaker-starting at age 11, when he snapped a photograph at his sister\u2019s wedding. The photograph, a seemingly candid shot of individuals standing beneath a roof with a large sculpture of an octopus set atop, sets the stage for Harris\u2019s longstanding curiosity for the odd and uncanny. The octopus image is paired with other photographs taken throughout Harris\u2019s career. Text and arrows are added to create a visual navigation from image to image. Arrows are in fact a common symbol throughout the exhibition, used to both guide and distract the viewer from points of significance. Although symbols such as arrows appear didactic, they in fact reject such easy associations.<\/p>\n

After the infamous octopus photograph, Harris began working for local station KUTV, where he was responsible for producing a series of investigative segments cumulatively titled \u201cAtomic Television.\u201d\u00a0 Bordering on kitsch, these segments are often laced with comical undertones. Adjacent to the wall of photographs, the exhibition recreates a 1970\u2019s style living room, complete with vintage furniture, a bookshelf, wall decoration and a television playing selections from \u201cAtomic Television.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connected to the photographic wall and faux-living area is the exhibition\u2019s primary spectacle\u2014a room containing evidence of a lively film career. Visitors entering this space are greeted by a large screen displaying excerpts from various documentaries which Harris narrates in a discombobulated and personal manner. The sights and sounds emanating from this enormous screen are impossible to ignore\u2014as if Harris is personally accompanying viewers throughout the exhibition. Surrounding the screen are various artifacts from Harris\u2019s career, including enlarged film stills, posters, props and a large photographic work entitled, \u201cMy Brain.\u201d In this photographic collage, we see repeated images that appear elsewhere in the exhibition, mixed with portraits of individuals from around the world. Intermixed throughout the collage are arrows, yet again included to ambiguously alter or guide our vision.<\/p>\n

Whereas the first room of the exhibition highlights Harris\u2019s work, the second room is decidedly autobiographical. The room is littered with screens displaying scenes from his most recent film\u00a0Luna Mesa<\/em>\u00a0(2011) and digitized excerpts from his journal.
\nThese video instillations illuminate the dark room with bright colors and abstract shapes. Screens enlarge selected pages from the journal, that is also presented in physical form in a display box. Harris toys with our traditional notion of an artistic journal as informative and didactic. Instead, the journal\u2014in its various forms\u2014is a work of art itself, rather than a prerequisite to a completed project.<\/p>\n

The exhibition seems to play upon Harris\u2019s interest in documentation. That is to say, his preoccupation with cataloging certain autobiographical episodes as works of art themselves.<\/p>\n

Consistent with this interesting propensity for channeling creativity through the banal, the exterior wall of the exhibition (lining UMOCA\u2019s hallway), contains a work entitled, \u201cBruce and Me.\u201d This work details the correspondence between Trent Harris and fellow artist Bruce Connor. Harris includes letters and a written statement combined with Pop collages of wild and incoherent images that are overtly comical but also endearing.
\nLike Harris\u2019s work as a whole, the correspondence relishes in the absurd\u2014using repetition as a vehicle for lunacy.<\/p>\n

The exhibition culminates in the new media gallery, where Harris\u2019s\u00a0Echo Cave<\/em>\u00a0title comes full circle. The gallery\u2019s dark enclosed space mimics a real cave, a space where viewers are visually assaulted by multiple clips from Harris\u2019s film career on one giant screen. To Harris, this selection is a natural conclusion, a finale for those patient enough to sit in the room long enough. Perhaps then, the echo cave, with its silent and contemplative aura, is the best possible venue for taking in the enormity of Harris\u2019s strange artistic vision.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Trent Harris\u2019s\u00a0Echo Cave<\/em>\u00a0runs through April 26, 2014 at the\u00a0Utah Museum of Contemporary Art\u00a0<\/a>(UMOCA), 20 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not many filmmakers receive solo exhibitions in art museums. Trent Harris, however, is unlike most filmmakers. The Utah native is best known outside of his home state, where he maintains a cult following around the globe. As opposed to more traditional filmmakers, his work is highly experimental, allowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":25058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1817,809],"class_list":["post-25057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-trent-harris","tag-umoca"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/trentharris.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 19:14:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25057"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41589,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25057\/revisions\/41589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}