{"id":36135,"date":"2004-03-07T14:48:21","date_gmt":"2004-03-07T20:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36135"},"modified":"2020-03-24T05:22:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T11:22:00","slug":"shawn-harris-the-best-weve-got","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/shawn-harris-the-best-weve-got\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawn Harris: The Best We’ve Got"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>OK, here I go. I\u2019m gonna lay it on the line. All my future critical responses will be judged by this one utterance, this one assessment, this giving of a 10 by which the 9s and 6s and 7s of future critical reviews will be metered. I stand on the precipice . . .<\/p>\n

I think Shawn Harris is the best artist we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

Choose, if you will, to ignore my slight bravado. After all, I may not be too far out on a limb. I\u2019m not the first to recognize this artist\u2019s talent. Harris has appeared in a number of exhibitions the past couple of years and the Salt Lake Arts Council is currently giving him a show \u2013 the impetus for my assessment \u2013 which hangs until April 9th. At Artists of Utah\u2019s 2002\u00a035 x 35<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(where I first saw his work) he garnered both a Juror\u2019s Award, as well as the People\u2019s Choice Award. He has also won a Traveling Exhibition Award from the Utah Arts Council. But I don\u2019t think that any of this adequately sums up the strength and excitement of his work.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ll say it once again, Shawn Harris is the best artist we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

By we, I mean Utah, and more specifically the Salt Lake scene \u2013 which is mostly what I get to see. This, admittedly, isn\u2019t exactly saying that Harris is ready to conquer an international bienniale. But then again . . .<\/p>\n

Harris describes himself as a photographer, but as his 11 pieces at the Art Barn aptly demonstrate he is so much more. The central method of his work is photography, usually very large images, produced in multiple 16 x 20 sections to create a full image. The photography is blended with oil paints, hand tinted, often projected both in 2 and 3 dimensions. Most importantly, the photographs don\u2019t feel like photographs \u2013 which far too often leave a lot of viewers, including me, uninterested.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Harris\u2019 work has everything. It is sculpture, painting, photography, found object amalgamation, and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised, due to the nature of the pieces \u2013 their built-in architecture and projecting panels and pieces — if it became installation art as well.<\/p>\n

Harris goes much beyond photography, but not by relying on Photoshop\u2019s tricks and other digital wizardry to spice up his photographs. That’s because his works really aren\u2019t photographs. They use photographs but are something different entirely. Harris relies on a form of collage, with photography as one element, to create the interest of his pieces. He also uses found objects, carpentry, glass pieces and other three-dimensional aspects. All to create what I call his \u201csettings.\u201d His works seem like still theater, creating a space, a drama and a statement. And like theater he is able to use his artwork as social commentary.<\/p>\n

By far one of the strongest pieces in the exhibit at the Finch Lane Gallery is actually one of the simplest. In \u201cSeed Seller\u201d we see a large photograph of a young vendor (a popcorn seller at a ball game maybe?) with the words \u201cPreexistence\u201d as the logo on his cap. From the frame of the photograph extends a rack with packs of seeds displayed. You can choose your gender, your race, even your occupation. The highest priced seed is a white female, which sells for $7.99. An Asian goes for $2.69 and a homosexual for $1.39. An African-American female sells for $1.50 (you\u2019ll have to pay an additional $6.49 to get that white skin). Her male counterpart costs an additional $.49. But a professional athlete (shown again as an African-American male) sells for a whopping $5.99.<\/p>\n

The piece is an explosive commentary. The seed rack has the feel of an old general store, and the vendor hints at that bizarre populist arena of acceptance \u2013 the national sports industry \u2013 where everyday racists will forget the color of your skin as long as you can jump high or hit the ball over the fence. It also reaches out in a global context, a sci-fi comment on the future of genetic engineering. More poignant, it seems a local commentary, the \u201cPreexistence\u201d of the cap logo a purposeful code word for the Mormon concept of pre-earthly existence and the extra-doctrinal interpretations in Mormon culture of people\u2019s \u201cplacement\u201d on earth (in bodies) dependant on their valiance in the pre-life.<\/p>\n

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

Harris is an equal-opportunity offender, not only relying on the local, and admittedly easy, target of the Mormon culture. The national scandals of the Catholic Church have no problem stepping into his work. In \u201cSell Me a Papal Indulgence for My Bread of Heaven\u201d the recent scandals in the Catholic Church may be the medium, but the message is a reminder about the evil and corruption that tends to invade organized religion. Harris creates a stage set \u2013 literally. Theater seating is placed in a Baroque church setting, and extends from the two-dimensional space of the photograph into the three-dimensional world of the viewer. A young boy, vulnerable behind his spectacles, holds out an unbroken loaf of bread in an uncomfortable gesture somewhere between offering and appeal.<\/p>\n

Take a look through the entirety of the show and you realize Harris is not a one-tune wonder. Political commentary is not the only thing he can do. He can also make elegiac works, as in \u201cOperation 911.\u201c Think of some of the recent \u201ctributes\u201d to 9\/11, which more than two years later still dominates our societal psyche. There are the FBI agents, recently exposed in the media, who took \u201csouvenirs\u201d from Ground Zero and later gave them to friends, family and business associates. Or the furor over the political prostitution of 9\/11 images in the ongoing presidential campaign. Give it a few years and we\u2019ll see images of firefighters at Ground Zero used to sell trucks and the latest country single.<\/p>\n

Then there is Harris\u2019 piece: a long horizontal collage of images, both photograph and a super-imposed glass etching, of the interior of an airplane where ghostly figures can barely be seen walking or sitting. Beneath it all, subtle images of firefighters.\u00a0 For his tribute to 9\/11, Harris has chosen not the fascinatingly lurid image of the passenger planes crashing into Manhattan\u2019s towers, or the senseless rubble of the aftermath. His is a tribute to what 9\/11 really showed. We are all vulnerable, and no matter how many wars we wage here or overseas we will remain vulnerable; but Harris reminds us of the heroism latent in the best of our souls. Yes, 9\/11 is a bullet ricocheting in the soft spots of our conscious minds, but in Harris\u2019s work it rends through the very best of us and reveals us to ourselves like an open wound. These images we are seeing are the heroes of 9\/11: the \u201cLet\u2019s Do It\u201d passengers of the fourth airplane, who prevented a greater tragedy in D.C.; and the firefighters who raced into the towers to save the lives of others only to die in the crumbling mass or live to clean up the remains of their fallen comrades. The tone of the piece is quietly honoring: no bravado, no brass bands. It is a visual moment of silence for the departed heroes.<\/p>\n

The singularly non-photographic work in the exhibit, \u201cSingle Downer,\u201d is a powerful work in its simplicity. The rib cage of a single cow is encased in glass. It feels like a museum piece from some Museum of Natural (or Unnatural) History.\u00a0 What exactly would the placard read? \u201cSingle Downer leads to the spread of mad cow disease to entire North American cattle population, fast-food industry completely destroyed, world markets collapse, devastation by World War III.\u201d Who knows? What the image represents is not some localized danger, but a reminder of exactly how closely we are all connected. Like Patient Zero, the promiscuous French-Canadian flight attendant to whom a fourth of the initial AIDS cases in North America have been connected. Despite our best attempt to find a hole in the sand big enough to hide our heads in, we can\u2019t but face the hard reality that forevermore our world is connected and we are all one.<\/p>\n

Shawn Harris is our best because he knows how to get at our best and at our worst. He probes our fears, our prejudices, our wonder and our hurt.<\/p>\n

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

Is my assessment of this young artist overblown? I don\u2019t think so. Take a look around this month and then go to the Art Barn and see for yourself. In fact, in the Art Barn itself you\u2019ll see an apt comparison. Hanging concurrently with Harris are works by John O\u2019Connell, new professor of art at the University of Utah. O\u2019Connell\u2019s works are layered, encrusted mashes of abstract markings. They are certainly beautiful. But in the end they don\u2019t really take your breath away. They are not the ax that breaks open the frozen lake of your mind, to co-opt a phrase from Kafka. They are accomplished and attractive but they are not astounding. I would even say that O\u2019Connell is one of the better artists around here. But he\u2019s stuck in a self-absorbed meandering through material, whereas Harris has really tapped into a post-modern sensibility and method that seems to capture our times in an appropriate medium — which seems to be the best that art can offer.<\/p>\n

Sure, I may be wrong. I may be premature. I may be excited for the moment. But take a look for yourselves. He\u2019s got breadth and he\u2019s got depth. He\u2019s got a voice and he\u2019s got something to say. He\u2019s my Bo Derek. He\u2019s my 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, here I go. I\u2019m gonna lay it on the line. All my future critical responses will be judged by this one utterance, this one assessment, this giving of a 10 by which the 9s and 6s and 7s of future critical reviews will be metered. I stand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1527,"featured_media":52874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[96,3043],"class_list":["post-36135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-finch-lane-gallery","tag-shawn-harris"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/03\/SELL.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 03:54:37","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\/36135","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\/1527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52879,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36135\/revisions\/52879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}