An Anarchitectural Body of Work (Paperback)

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

Friederike Schäfer, Kunsthistorikerin, Freie Universität Berlin.

Friederike Schäfer, art historian, Freie Universität Berlin.