Rachel Higgins

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What is my work about?

I pervert elements of commercial architectural design to create social sculptures and participatory events. My work is contingent; it behaves more as a ground than a figure. It is a physical response to variable contexts. I am motivated by sites of contestation, the privatization of space, and the ways architecture constructs our social realities. My past work has been influenced by a landscape of suburban sprawl and shopping malls, or corporate lobbies and office parks of Manhattan. Recently, I have been also working with social sites of pleasure-from theatres to bathhouses-to re-think public histories within queer communities and political movements.

 

Artist Statement

I work inter-disciplinarily, but my practice is most driven by site-specific engagement. I create sculpture and and participatory events which queer and re-imagine public space. Using salvaged architectural materials and mundane elements of commercial design, I create playful objects which implicate bodies through physical interaction.

Past projects include an exhibition space organized within a foreclosed shopping mall, a rolling portable room, a simulated corporate atrium, a playground made of post-modern architectural ruins, pop-up bathhouses, a platform for the public stealing or displaying of sculptures, a series of trash receptacles, animated lamps, synthetic stone furniture, and a mobile theatre designed for Times Square.

I typically work with basic salvaged construction materials, wood, metal, cement, and found objects. Recently, I have also been working with more contemporary construction materials, known as exterior wall-cladding and EIFS insulation systems which include synthetics like fiberglass, polystyrene, and synthetic stone. These materials are used for facading commercial and domestic buildings. Walking around Brooklyn, one can find this ubiquitous material on newly surfaced condos, brownstones, and retail stores. It resembles stone or concrete, but knocking on the facade will produce a hollow sound, revealing that it is actually mostly styrofoam. I have been testing this lightweight material, using it to instead create clumsy chairs and movable objects.

Many of these sculptures take elements of decorative construction and popular design as I attempt to recreate them in basic geometric forms as large, human sized vessels or building blocks in my own hand. Mamasan for instance, references both the pinch pot and the papasan chair. Jacuzzi, a functional home-made jacuzzi powered by a shop-vac, mimics the ancient clay coil-pot tradition. These familiar forms resonate with an inviting awkwardness, encouraging the viewers to touch, lift push, and play with them, as they have been moved through different contexts: public and private, indoors and out, in the gallery or on the street.

For instance, in a 2014 performance, It’s Not that Heavy (12 sculptures Carried with Strangers), I brought many of these sculptures out in the street for a weekend long event at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan–an area currently under highly contested redevelopment and re-branding. For this performance I invited passers-by to help me carry my sculptures around the neighborhood. Together, we fumbled through the streets carrying abstract shapes, decorative orbs, street bollards, synthetic stone facades and aluminum planters. Jacuzzi was shown both in a gallery context and in an outdoor exhibition in which I created a functional studio bathhouse complete with a wood-fired sauna and sculptures re-purposed as showers, pools and tubs that attendees used. Other works shown here include some past installations, however, the documentation I have chosen focuses mainly on the formal relationships of recent work rather than on the secondary depiction of more participatory events.

 

CV

Education

2010 M.F.A. Hunter College CUNY, New York, NY

2009 Universität der Künste Berlin, Germany

2003 B.F.A. Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham, AL

2002 Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland

 

Selected Group Exhibitions and Performances

2014

Failing to Levitate, curated by Natasha Marie Llorens and Kerry Downey, EFA Project Space, NYC

Rachel Higgins I Giacinto Occhionero, Kristen Lorello, NYC

Several Circles, curated by Marco Antonini, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, NYC

Out to See, curated by Sara Reisman, South Street Seaport, NYC

2013

Do It (Outside) presented by Independent Curators International, and Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY

Because Nothing Ends: sculpture, performance & readings for Amanda Friedman’s book launch, White Columns, NYC

Cysco/Sysco/Sisquo, curated by Kristof Wickman, Alina Tenser and Tom Simon, La Fonda, Far Rockaways, Queens, NY

Trickledown, presented by Garden Party/Arts, Brooklyn NY, curated by Erin Ikeler and Ariel Roman

W.A.S.H., a bathhouse at Chevy in the Hole, Flint Free City Public Art Festival, Flint MI

Rainbow Juice, curated by David Lukowski and Birgit Rathsman, Helper Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Oblique Strategies, curated by Emmy Mikelson, Peter Fingesten Gallery, Pace University, NYC

2012

Emma Hedditch and Rachel Higgins in conversation, organized by Malin Arnell, The Oncoming Corner, Brooklyn, NY

House Arrest, curated by Terri Smith, Franklin Street Works, Stamford, CT

Middling, curated by Margaret Coleman, Gowanus Ballroom, Brooklyn, NY

RTS Talks, Rachel Higgins and Mark Taylor, Real Time & Space, Oakland, CA

2011

Socrates Sculpture Park 2011 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY

Contain, Sustain, Maintain, curated by Sara Reisman, Welmoed Laanstra and Ernesto Santalla, with Washington Project for

the Arts, Artisphere, Rosslyn, VA

BLACKOUT curated by Kyle Clyde, Port d’Or, Brooklyn, NY

Anomalistic Urge, curated by Courtney Tramposh, Vaudeville Park, Brooklyn, NY

One Night Show, curated by Leigh Ruple, Vaudeville Park, Brooklyn, NY

2010

Anthem, curated by Elina Tukhanen and Cathrine Dahl, at Babel Kunst, Trondheim, Norway

Wish You Were Here, Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition, Times Square Gallery, NYC

Farkt, Kunstverein Weiden, Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Bavaria, Germany

Hunters, Crane Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA

Ecstatic, St. Cecilia’s Parish, Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY

Curator, WHEREVER, a travelling show of small works in a portable room, NYC

2009

Drawing in Between, Quergalerie, UDK, Berlin, Germany

Rummage, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY

Death of Analog Noise, Silent Barn, Ridgewood, NY

Curator, Everything Must Go, Century Plaza Shopping Mall, Birmingham, AL

2008

How We Know, curated by Emma Spertus, Beta Spaces Festival, Brooklyn, NY

Live Wonderfully, curated by Patrick Arnold, 219 Ave A, New York, NY

Mark Taylor, Rachel Higgins, & Caleb Rogers, curated by Emma Spertus, Subletters Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

 

Awards and Residencies

Artist in Residence, Workspace program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council 2013-2014

Visiting Scholar, NYU Steinardt School of Education, Culture, and Human Resources, Department of Art and Art Professions, Advanced Media Studio, 2013-2014

Artist-in-Residence, Real Time & Space, Oakland CA, 2012

Emerging Artist Fellowship, Socrates Sculpture Park, 2011

Artist-In-Residence, Build-It-Green, NYC Salvage Yard, Queens, NY, 2011

Provost’s Graduate Studies Award, Hunter College, NYC 2009-10

Graduate Foreign Exchange Program Award for Universität der Künste Berlin, Germany, 2009

Painting Scholarship for the 2006 Virginia Commonwealth University Summer Studio Residency, Richmond, VA, 2005

 

Press

Nervous Digging, Talent 2013: Eight new artists to watch, recommended for Sleek by established practitioners, by Francesca Gavin, Sleek Magazine #39, Autumn 2013

“Art from the Ruins” feature by Jesse Chambers, Birmingham-Metro, August 1, 2011

“Pop-Up Shop” By Ceci Moss, Rhizome, December 15th, 2008

“Consume This! Exhibition at Century Plaza Reinvents the Mall as Art Space” by Madison Underwood, Birmingham Weekly, cover story, December 25, 2008