Jean Fautrier

Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street
July 16, 2013–July 20, 2003

Haggerty Museum of Art
1234 W Tory Hill St Marquette University
September 19–December 29, 2002

Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University
615 W. 129th Street 6th Floor
January 28–March 29, 2003

Curated by Curtis L. Carter and Karen Butler

Jean Fautrier’s art has always been a matter of taste, and his often seemed pretty bad, down to the snakeskin shoes he famously wore to the opening of his war-inspired “Hostage” series. Some critics argue that the later paintings’ flirtation with kitsch is deliberate. Now we have a chance to judge for ourselves with this long-overdue first US retrospective. Organized by Haggerty Museum director Curtis L. Carter and Karen Butler of Columbia University, the exhibition surveys Fautrier’s forty-year career and is accompanied by a catalogue with contributions by the curators, along with Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, and Rachel Perry.

— Scott Rothkopf

Rachel Harrison

Milwaukee Art Museum
700 N. Art Museum Drive
September 20, 2002–January 5, 2003

Curated by Stefano Basilico

Few young artists can create a bustle, much less a cooing quorum, among testy critical camps. Happily, there’s Rachel Harrison. Her work is smart, fun, and, well, weird—often a sui generis marriage of photography and sculpture in which she manages to present and interrogate a strange moment, where the formal abstraction of post-Minimal objecthood encounters the effluvia of popular culture (Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, and toy figurines have starred in recent pieces). For Harrison’s first solo museum show, visiting curator Stefano Basilico has chosen six richly hybrid sculptures (her favorite materials include Styrofoam, papier-mâché, plywood, and cement) and more than a dozen photographs.

— Bruce Hainley