ART CITIES:N.York-Zach Harris

Zach Harris’s carved panel paintings unfold complex utopian and dystopian worlds. His psychedelic visions, which almost verge on abstraction, immerse viewers in the unfathomable depths of mysterious cosmologies. The art-historical density of his aesthetics is haunting, in a sense similar to that of late-nineteenth-century symbolism. While the bright coloring of his obsessively detailed paintings is reminiscent of the highly demanding ornamental quality of Persian miniatures, his intricate hand- or laser-engraved frames evoke the elaborate woodwork of Christian altarpieces.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Perrotin Gallery Archive

Zach Harris in his solo exhibition “Zero Hour” presents a new series of carved panel paintings which he has worked on for a half-decade, time is the key subject-matter, both in terms of the length of time the gaze is forced to circumnavigate the artist’s exquisitely carved surfaces, as well as the amount of time they have taken to produce, and the visions that they contain. Made on panel, with occasional carvings and linen inserts, the works often play with light and depth perception. Each one is elaborately framed, though saying that would be separating the frame from the image, which is inaccurate; they are frames within frames, images within images, in infinite regress. Some of the works take the shape and scale of furniture (a large standing clock or a side table) but as you approach them, they convert into architecture and landscape: the clock becomes a tower teeming with figures, the image of a table becomes a mantel above which hangs a panting, itself a vista of a vibrant landscape. Where the frame ends and the painting begins is slippery terrain: each painting is essentially a universe in a marble. These stages of perception, the way in which the painting transforms as you approach, is the result of what Harris describes as “logic fields”: each painting is comprised of multiple planes, layered. The various planes provide stages of legibility as you approach the painting, beginning with a larger, mathematically drawn, architectural view that tumbles down into microworlds and narratives as you close the physical gap between you and the painting and invest time into slow looking.  In late 2016, Harris started making work about 2020, some of which is on view here. His understanding of the year’s potency was prescient. Time in 2020 felt elastic, whirling by in some moments and plodding along in others. Experts crowded the airwaves to articulate the way in which our modern timekeeping had been shaped in service to industrialization and productivity (both dramatically challenged this pandemic-year) as well as emphasize that time perception relies on differentiation. The ability to chart change was stalled in the throes of stay-at-home orders and the cyclical rhythms of systematic oppression. In contrast to the functional history of timekeeping, time here, for Harris, is treated as a spiritual experience akin to Walter Benjamin’s non-linear epiphanic time, and connected to vision, as both the capacity to see and the power to imagine. Scale is a key vector in these works. Harris utilizes the Golden Ratio and other mathematical measures, such as the soft curves of a single arabesque form, to scale an image’s frames proportionally.

Photo: Zach Harris, Linen Last Judgement (Easter Eggs) [detail], 2021, Carved wood, linen, water-based paint, ink, 186.7 × 142.2 cm | 73 1/2 × 56 inch, © Zach Harris, Courtesy the artist and Perrotin Gallery

Info: Perrotin Gallery, 130 Orchard Street, New York, Duration: 4/3-17/4/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.perrotin.com