An Anarchitectural Body of Work: Suzanne Harris and the Downtown New York Artists' Community in the 1970s - Paperback

by Friederike Schäfer (Author)

This is the first book on the
boundary-pushing practice of the artist, dancer, and educator Suzanne
Harris (1940-1979). Harris was a protagonist in key avant-garde projects
of the downtown New York City artists' community in the 1970s (the
Anarchitecture group, 112 Greene Street, FOOD, The Natural History of
the American Dancer, Heresies); yet her own oeuvre fell into abeyance.

Harris'
postminimalist work broke the mold of art categories, (feminist) art
practices, art spaces, and the common notion of space. By transcending
sculpture and dance, she created ephemeral, site-specific installations,
which she conceived as body-oriented choreographic situations. Her
approach of sensory awareness led to a holistic philosophy of space,
which again is paradigmatic for a materialist approach to (social) space
that emerged in the arts at the time.

• Rediscovery of a forgotten female artist
• New insights into the New York art scene
• Recipient of the Terra Foundation for American Art International Publication Grant

Author Biography

Friederike Schäfer, art historian, Freie Universität Berlin.