Helen Mirra
{{Short description|American artist}}
{{Infobox artist
| image = Mirra Kauzchensteig.jpg
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1970|12|31|}}
| birth_place = Rochester New York
| nationality =
| education = Bennington College, University of Illinois at Chicago
| style =
| name = Hendl Helen Mirra
}}
Hendl Helen Mirra{{Cite web |title=Hendl Helen Mirra |url=https://www.hmirra.net/biography/ |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=www.hmirra.net}} is an American conceptual artist. "[Like Henry David Thoreau, she is a] maximalist in a minimalist robe", with an idiosyncratic practice.{{cite news|url=https://frieze.com/article/reference-material|title=Reference Material|last1=Eleey|first1=Peter|date=January 2006|work=Frieze Magazine}} She is engaged with ideas common to buddhist{{Cite web|url=http://www.thehighline.org/activities/helen-mirra-half-smiler|title=HIGH LINE ART COMMISSION: Helen Mirra, Half-smiler {{!}} Friends of the High Line|access-date=2018-05-09|archive-date=2018-05-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510115304/http://www.thehighline.org/activities/helen-mirra-half-smiler|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.largeglass.co.uk/Stephen-Batchelor-Talk|title=Stephen Batchelor Talk|website=www.largeglass.co.uk|language=en}}{{Cite news |date=2015-09-13 |title="Not-knowing is most intimate": Helen Mirra in Conversation with Emmalea Russo |url=https://artcritical.com/2015/09/13/emmalea-russo-with-helen-mirra/ |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2015-09-25 |work=artcritical |language=en-US}} and pragmatist{{Cite web |title=BAMPFA - Helen Mirra / MATRIX 209 - 65 Instants |url=https://bampfa.org/program/helen-mirra-matrix-209 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2016-07-05 |website=}}{{Cite web|url=http://collection.fraclorraine.org/parcour/showtext/12?wid=694&lang=en|title=Collection FRAC Lorraine {{!}} Helen Mirra:Human Ken, 24|website=collection.fraclorraine.org}} philosophies, and since 2008 her art practice has been integrated with walking.{{Cite web |date=2010 |title=Conscience de pierre press release |url=https://www.peterfreemaninc.com/exhibitions/helen-mirra/press-release |website=Galerie Nelson Freeman}} She has said of walking: "It is an unskilled activity, and a modest activity, and a free activity, and an always-available activity, and an equipment-free activity, and an active activity."{{Cite news|url=http://www.metropolism.com/en/features/32730_helen_mirra|title="This is my interest anyway - to not-demand" - Interview with Helen Mirra - Features - Metropolis M|language=en}} In an essay on Mirra's work, Yukio Lippit described her engagement thus: "Mirra’s practice champions walking as a specific form of thinking that bypasses language. Indeed, one senses that she shares with Zen Buddhists in particular a deep skepticism towards language as an authentic mechanism of discovery."{{Cite web|url=http://www.hmirra.net/information/pdfs/Lippit_2011.pdf|title="Ambulations", gehend (Berlin: argobooks, 2013)|last=Lippit|first=Yukio}} At the same time, she has often worked with language as a primary material.{{Cite web|url=https://nordenhake.com/exhibitions/2018/helen-mirra|title=reference to book coinciding with exhibition: Nueve años caminando en las laderas|website=nordenhake.com}}{{Cite web |last=Mirra |first=Helen |date=2007 |title=Cloud, the, 3 |url=https://jrp-editions.com/art/books/monographs-artists-books/cloud-the-3/ |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |publisher=JRP Ringier}}
Career
Hendl Mirra has worked in diverse media including weaving,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/arts/design/what-to-see-in-new-york-art-galleries.html|title=Helen Mirra|last=Smith|first=Roberta|work=The New York Times|date=3 January 2019 |issn=0362-4331}} writing - particularly indexes,{{Cite web|url=http://www.renaissancesociety.org/events/750/helen-mirra-cloud-the-3/|title=Helen Mirra: Cloud, the, 3 {{!}} Events: Reading {{!}} The Renaissance Society}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/29/mirra.php|title=CABINET // Inventory / Index for Der Räuber|website=www.cabinetmagazine.org|language=en}}{{Cite web|url=http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/060424.mirra.shtml|title=Public art by Helen Mirra appearing across the University of Chicago campus|date=March 31, 2006}} experimental music,{{Cite web|url=http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2003/10oct_text.html|title=Paris Transatlantic recommendations}}{{Cite web|url=http://sonambiente.com/en/04_artists/4M2mirr_werk.html|title=sonambiente berlin 2006 {{!}} festival für hören und sehen {{!}} klang kunst sound art {{!}} 1.6.-16.7}} sculpture, 16mm film, and video.{{Cite web |title=Helen Mirra {{!}} Video Data Bank |url=http://www.vdb.org/artists/helen-mirra |website=www.vdb.org |language=en}} "Environmental belonging" has been a persistent theme,{{Cite web |title=Helen Mirra, Hourly Directional - Art & Education |url=https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/107383/helen-mirrahourly-directional/ |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |language=en}} while keeping within a restricted palette.{{cite web|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/158460|title=About This Artwork: Map of Parallel 52 North at a Scale of One Foot to One Degree|website=Art Institute of Chicago|year=1999}} Her first one-person institutional exhibition, Sky-wreck, at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 2001, was an indigo-dyed textile sculpture of a section of the sky, imagined as part of a geodesic structure.{{cite web|url=http://www.renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/425/helen-mirra-sky-wreck/|title=Helen Mirra: Skywreck|website=Renaissance Society}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.hmirra.net/information/pdfs/Walker_2002.pdf|title=Thread-skies|last=Walker|first=Hamza|date=2001}} In addition to John Cage,{{Cite web|url=http://www.hmirra.net/information/pdfs/Camper_2005.pdf|title=Chicago Reader: Rethinking Thought: Helen Mirra|last=Camper|first=Fred|date=July 8, 2005}} Stanley Brouwn, André Cadere, and Douglas Huebler are key influences.
She has an exhibition history in North and South America, Europe, and Japan,{{cite web|url=http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/leaving-to-return/|title=Bienal de Cuenca|website=e-flux}}{{cite web|url=http://www.takaishiigallery.com/en/archives/6263/|title=Helen Mirra at Taka Ishii Gallery}} and participated in broad international exhibitions such as the 11th Havana Bienal, the 30th São Paulo Art Biennial and the 50th Venice Biennial. A fifteen-year (1995-2009) survey of her work, [https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/30943/helen-mirra/ Edge Habitat], was presented in 2014 at Culturgest in Lisbon, Portugal, and the corresponding publication Edge Habitat Materials was published by Whitewalls.{{Cite book |url=https://listart.mit.edu/art-artists/publications/helen-mirra-edge-habitat-materials |title=Edge Habitat Materials, Helen Mirra, survey 1995-2009 |publisher=University of Chicago Press}}
She was a Senior Lecturer in Visual Art and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Chicago (2001-2005){{Cite web|url=http://www.hmirra.net/information/pdfs/Stewart_2003.pdf|title=Muse and medium|last=Stewart|date=2003}} and a Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities in the department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University until 2013.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ves.fas.harvard.edu/mirra.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130411112727/http://www.ves.fas.harvard.edu/mirra.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2013-04-11|title=Visual and Environmental Studies faculty: Helen Mirra|date=2013}} She has been an artist-in-residence at University of California at Berkeley,{{Cite web|url=http://arts.berkeley.edu/?page_id=80|title=ARC Visiting Artists}} and a guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.{{Cite web |title=Berliner Künstlerprogramm |url=https://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/en/artist/helen-mirra/ |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=}} She lives in Northern California.{{Cite web|last=lottozero|title=HELEN MIRRA|url=https://www.lottozero.org/portrait-helen-mirra?locale=en|language=en}}
Selected solo exhibitions
- [http://www.renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/425/helen-mirra-sky-wreck/ Sky-wreck], Renaissance Society, 2001
- Declining Interval Lands{{cite news|url=http://www.hmirra.net/information/pdfs/Mirra_Whitney.pdf|title=From Land and Sound to Thought|last1=Richard|first1=Frances|date=2002|work=Whitney Museum brochure}}, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002
- [https://bampfa.org/program/helen-mirra-matrix-209 65 Instants], MATRIX 209, Berkeley Art Museum, 2003
- [http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/helen-mirra-gehend-field-recordings-1-3/ Gehend], Bonner Kunstverein, KW Institute of Contemporary Art Berlin, and Haus Kontruktiv, Zurich, 2011-2012
- [https://listart.mit.edu/exhibitions/hourly-directional-helen-mirra-ernst-karel Hourly Directional] with Ernst Karel, MIT List Center, 2014
- [https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/107383/helen-mirrahourly-directional/ Hourly Directional], Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2014
- [http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/helen-mirra/ Edge Habitat], Culturgest, Lisbon Portugal, 2014
- Waulked, {{cite news|last1=Farzin|first1=Media|title=Helen Mirra's "Waulked"|url=http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/helen-mirra%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cwaulked%E2%80%9D/|work=Art Agenda|date=October 13, 2014}} Peter Freeman Inc., New York, 2014
- Helen Mirra, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, 2015{{cite news|last1=Andersson|first1=Axel|title=Tid omvandlad till konkret rumslighet|url=http://www.kunstkritikk.no/kritikk/tid-omvandlad-till-konkret-rumslighet|work=Kunstkritikk|date=September 1, 2015}}
- [http://nordenhake.com/exhibitions/2018/n *], Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, 2018
- la malplena ĉambro estas bela, Large Glass, London, 2020
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.hmirra.net/ artist's website]
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Category:American conceptual artists
Category:Bennington College alumni
Category:University of Illinois Chicago alumni
Category:Harvard University faculty
Category:University of Chicago faculty
Category:MacDowell Colony fellows
Category:American women conceptual artists