The subject of Mark Harris’s essay will be the Cincinnati-based, artist-run space Publico, which shut its doors in January 2008. Publico’s unconventional installations mixed out-of-towners with local artists in shows that realized new possibilities for painting, music, and conceptual practices. Harris will place the organization’s five-year career in the context of similar initiatives in New York and London, such as BANK and City Racing in London and Brooklyn’s Four Walls. He will also consider the differences in operating procedures between Publico and other North American regional spaces like Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis, San Antonio’s Artpace, and Presentation House Gallery in Vancouver. In addition, Harris’s text will feature a comparative study of the prolific array of remarkable publicity material that served as a visual commentary on Publico’s actions.
Recent publications by Mark Harris include Marcia Farquhar (South London Gallery, London, 2008) and Pipilotti Rist’s Music (Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, 2007). He also has contributed more than a dozen reviews each to Art in America and Art Monthly. Harris is director of the School of Art of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He trained as an artist at the Royal College of Art in London and holds a PhD in Philosophy from Goldsmiths College, University of London.