Biography
1970 Born in Rochester, New York
1987 Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York
1991 B.A., Studio Art and Contemporary Art History, Bennington College, Vermont
1996 M.F.A., Studio Art, University of Illinois, Chicago
Lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Solo Exhibitions
2011 Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany, gehend (Field Recordings 1-3) (20 September - 20 November). Exhibition travelled: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (27 November - 29 January 2012) and Haus
Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland (23 February - 29 April 2012)
Peter Freeman, New York, Field Notation (6 October - 12 November)
Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Field Index 3 (26 May - 26 June)
2009 Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Paris, Conscience de pierre (14 November - 22 January 2010)
Meyer Riegger Galerie, Berlin, 33 Bergwanderwege (29 April - 6 June)
Taka Ishii, Kyoto, Japan, Case Study: Swiss Bird Houses (10 January - 14 February)
2008 Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Quarry (17 February- 20 March)
Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Vermont, Helen Mirra
2007 Alte Fabrik (Gebert Stiftung Fur Kultur), Rapperswil, Switzerland, Grotesk Gegend
Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany, Waldau (9 March - 14 April)
2006 University of Chicago, Illinois, Instance the Determination (27 April 2006 - June 2009)
Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Paris, Käuzchensteig (25 February - 7 April)
Peter Freeman, New York, Break Camp (9 November - 20 January 2007)
2005 DAAD Galerie, Berlin, Cloud, the, 3 (23 March - 13 May)
PIAC (Piattaforma internazionale arte contemporanea), Ragusa, Italy, Helen Mirra (24 September - 30 November)
Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, Laws of clash, 247 (26 May - July)
2004 Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, Concentrations 45: Helen Mirra: Sudden and creeping violence (7 October - 2 January 2005)
Peter Freeman, New York, Helen Mirra: Hewn third (4 March - 17 April)
Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany, Miscellaneous papers (21 May - 11 July)
2003 University of California at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, Matrix 209: 65 Instants (23 November - 25 January 2004)
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, Helen Mirra (21 March - 19 April)
2002 DYG Projects, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, Arrow (22 November - January 2003)
Michael Hall Galerie, Vienna, 48°N, Backdrop (with Gaylen Gerber)
Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan, Nicola Sacco
Whitney Museum of American Art: Contemporary Series, New York, Declining Interval Lands (September 21 - 8 December)
2001 Meyer Riegger Galerie, Art 32 Basel, Switzerland, Miller's Views, Statements (13 - 18 June)
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Sky-Wreck (6 May - 24
June)
2000 Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany beforsten (23 September - 4 November)
Gasser & Grunert, New York, Latitude Lines and Railroad Ties
1999 Chicago Project Room, Chicago
1997 Rx (project space), Chicago
Chicago Project Room, Chicago
1996 Monk Parakeet, Chicago, Stowaway
Gallery 400, Chicago, Here but not here
Group Exhibitions
2011 Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland, Science & Fiction (20 July - 6 November)
Firth Street Gallery, London, Look with all your eyes, look (15 July - 30 September)
Arp Museum, Remagen, Belvedere: Why is Landscape Beautiful?
(9 September - 4 March 2012)
Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World), curated by Katrin Bucher Trantow, Peter Pakesch (11 June - 4 September)
Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, Essential Art, curated by Federico
Ferrari (11 April - 1 January 2012)
Franco Noero, Torino, Italy, Five Easy Pieces (24 February - 2 April)
Diapason Gallery, New York, Swiss mountain transport systems: Ernst Karel and Helen Mirra (January 8, 15, 22, & 29)
2010 Daadgalerie, Berlin, Die Natur ruft!, with Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla,
Jimmie Durham, Douglas Gordon, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Bethan Huws, Mario Merz (30 October - 4 December)
LaM - Lille Métropole Muse, Lille, France, Habiter poétiquement le monde (The World as Poem), curated by François Piron (25 September - 30 January 2011)
2009 MARTa, Herford, Germany, Pittoresk - Neue Perspektiven auf
das Landschaftsbild (3 October - 31 January 2010)
Abtart, Stuttgart, Germany, (Z)ART, curated by Jan Hoet (13 October - 31 January 2010)
About Change Collection, Berlin, Chapter Four: World Wraps (19 September - January 2010)
The Kunsthalle Mulhouse Contemporary Art Center, Mulhouse, France, Le jardin aux sentiers qui bifurquent (17 September - 15 November)
Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Livsformer/Life Forms (16 September - 10
January 2010)
Glassell School, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas, Reduced Visibility (4
September - 15 November)
Musée d’art moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole, Saint-Etienne, France, Fragile (16 May - 16 August)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, The Quick and the Dead, curated by Peter Eleey (24 April - 24 September)
le Credac, Ivry-sur-Seine, France, Le Travail de riviere (4 February - 29 March)
Intershop Tower, Jena, Germany, How to Work Better: Das Büro im Atelier,
curated by Christiane Rekade (23 January - 28 February)
2008 KW Instititure for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Political/Minimal (November - 25 January 2009)
Kunstverein Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany, Observing beast, time, evolution: Kunst und Naturwissenschaft (7 September - 2 November)
Yvon Lambert, Paris, Ready-Made (27 June - 6 September)
ZKM, Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany, Vertautes Terrain. Aktuelle Kunst in/über Deutschland (22 May - 12 October)
Museo ARCOS, Benevento, Italy, Italia Italie Italien Italy Wlochy (20 March - 31 August)
2007 Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin, Drawing a Tiger (28 September - 24 October)
MARTa, Herford, Germany, Marta Schweigt. Garde le silence, le silence te
gardera (7 June - 14 October)
Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, No Context, with Gardar Eide Einarsson, Sean Landers, Darren Bader, Hiroshi Teshigawara ( 30 June - 21 July)
Peter Blum Gallery, New York, Art and Language, with Stephanie Brooks and Ian Wilson (11 May - 23 June)
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway, Dump: Postmodern Sculpture in the Dissolved Field (5 March - 19 August)
Inova (Institute for Visual Art), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Place of the Transcommon (2 February -16 March)
2006 Mary Mary, Glasgow, Planting the Tele (25 November - 13 January)
Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe, Germany, Into a Journey (5 November - 9 December)
Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Helen Mirra, Sharon Harper
Sonambiente, festival für hören und sehen, Berlin (1 June - 16 July)
Galerie Lelong, New York, Spectrum (9 December - 28 January)
2005 Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Set, with Lisa Lapinski and Yuki Kimura, (20 August - 10 September)
White Columns, New York, Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta Clark’s
“Fake Estates” (9 September - 18 October)
Creative Time, the High Line, New York, The Plain of Heaven, curated by Peter Eleey (14 October - 20 November)
Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada, Variations on the Picturesque (10 December - 19 March 2006)
Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Tropical Abstraction (10 June - 21 August)
2004 Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, Material as Metaphor (10 December - 15 January 2005)
Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany, Formalismus. Moderne Kunst, heute. (9 October - 9 January 2005)
Galerie Kamm, Berlin, Black Friday: Exercises in Hermetics (10 July - 11
September)
Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, Fine Words Butter No Cabbage (August 29 - October 2)
2003 Sculpture Center, New York, Paper Sculpture (7 September - 7 December
2003)
Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, Land, Land! (18 January - 9 March)
50th Venice Biennale, Delays and Revolutions (15 June - 2 November)
The Pond, Chicago, Subject Index
Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, Going A Journey
Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany, There’s no land but the land (17 January - 28 February)
2002 Art Basel: Miami, Florida, Art Projects, curated by James Rondeau (5 - 8 December)
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Here and now
Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany, Zusammenhänge herstellen (29 June - 25 August)
Palo Alto Arts Center, Palo Alto, Artist as Navigator (27 June - 8 September)
Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, Sound Canopy
KIBLA, Maribor, Slovenia, Public Radio (February 2002)
Galerie Georg Kargl, Vienna, Waiting for the Ice Age ( 19 January - 9 March)
CCAC Institute, San Francisco, Sudden Glory
2001 Tirana Biennial 1, Albania (15 September - 15 October)
Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense, Denmark, Untitled 654321
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Contextual
Refusalon, San Francisco, To your left is the South, to your right is the North, depending (2001)
ApexArt, New York, Making the Making (5 January - 3 February)
Block Museum, Chicago, Seems: Integrations with the Physical and Social Periphery of the Museum (23 September - 10 December)
2000 Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Age of Influence (23 September - 10 December)
Donald Young, Chicago, Sound, Video, Film (5 May – 10 June)
Grand Central Arts, Santa Ana, California, Static
1999 Jacob Fabricius, Copenhagen, Denmark, You Smile and I Am Rubbing My Eyes
Exit Art/The First World, New York, The Stroke
Exit Art/The First World, New York, Faucet
1998 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Trance (6 October - 10 January 1999)
Bricks and Kicks, Vienna, Scott Hug, Helen Mirra, CAR
London Electronic Arts, London, Pandemonium
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Video & Film
57 Hope, Brooklyn, No Budget
1997 Art Forum Berlin, Berlin, Art Club Berlin
Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany, Some Kind of Heaven (20 February - 27 April). Exhibition travelled: South London Gallery, London (4 June - 13 July)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Time Arts Chicago (August)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Up Close and Personal (31 December 2006 - 2 March 1997)
1996 Gasser & Grunert, Cologne, Germany, Found Footage
University of California, San Diego, Super Super 8
The Renaissance Society, Chicago, Persona (10 March - 21 April). Exhibition travelled: Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland
San Francisco, Swell, Four Walls
1995 Anthology Film Archive, New York, Mix
TBA Exhibition Space, Chicago, Youth Culture Killed My Dog
Awards
2011 IASPIS (International Artists Studio Program in Sweden), Stockholm
2008-2009 Stiftung Laurenz Haus Residency, Basel
2007 Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue, New York
2007 International Studio Program, Office for Contemporary Art, Norway
2005 Artist in Residence, Berliner Künstlerprogramm, DAAD, Berlin
2004 DAAD Fellowship, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
2004 Alpert Ucross Residency Award, Wyoming
2003 Artist in Residence, University of California at Berkeley
2001 Driehaus Individual Artist Award, Chicago
1999 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award
1997-1998 Macdowell Residency, New Hampshire
1996 Jessica Holt Award, University of Illinois, Chicago
1995-1996 University Fellowship, University of Illinois, Chicago
Films and Videos
Arrow, 2002, video projection/sound including sub woofer, 28min
81N, 2001,16mm, color, silent, 11min
52̊N, 1999,16mm, color, silent, 11min
Songs 1-9, 1998, b&w video, single channel, silent, continuous loops
Third, 1998, b&w video projection with live sound, 45min
Untitled film, 1996, color, silent, 1min
Schlafbau,1996 b&w video projection, sound, 13min
I, Bear, 1995, color video, sound, 6min
The Ballad of Myra Furrow, 1994, b&w video, sound, 5min
Books and Recordings
Kuri-gohan (Field Recordings 1-3) (Berlin: Distanz Verlag, 2011)
Cloud, the, 3 (Zürich: Christoph Keller Editions/JRP Ringier, 2007)
Helen Mirra im Grunewald (Berlin: DAAD, 2006)
Sky-wreck (Chicago: The Renaissance Society, 2002)
Field Geometry (Chicago: Explain, 2000)
Names & Poems (Chicago: Whitewalls, 1999)
Alow (Chicago: Herkimer, 1999)
Along, Below (Chicago: Herkimer, 1999)
Stowaway (Chicago: Herkimer, 1996)
Publications
“Instance the determination,” Critical Inquiry Vol. 35, No. 4 (Summer 2009)
“Alpine Architecture,” Kurator 2007/2008 (Zurich: Edition Fink, 2008)
“Index for der Räuber,” Cabinet Magainze No. 29 (Spring 2008)
“Per Kirsten Pieroth,” Maps and Legends (Zürich: JRP Ringier, 2007)
“Traveler’s Code Book,” Black Friday (Frankfurt: Revolver, 2006)
“Artist Project/School-year,” Cabinet Magazine No. 9 (Winter 2002/03)
“Gr,” for COLORGAMES, a project by Lucio Pozzi, Anderson Gallery, Drake University, 2002.
collaboration with Gaylen Gerber, Whitewalls Vol. 40 (Spring 1998)
“I, Bear”, Whitewalls Vol. 38 (1996)
Selected Bibliography
Strange, Raimar, “Helen Mirra / Meyer Riegger,” Vonhundert, 089/100 (June 2009), p. 40.
Jones, Ronald, “Helen Mirra: Galerie Nordenhake,” Art Forum (Summer 2008), p. 458.
Visel, Dan, “Thinking about Indexing,” if:book, (blog of the Institute for the Future of the Book), (16 August 2007).
Hübl, Michael, “Helen Mirra: Feinfühligkeit der Präzision”, Badische Neuste
Nachrichten (9 March 2007).
“Goings on about town: Art & Language, Stephanie Brooks, Helen Mirra, Ian Wilson,” The New Yorker (June 25, 2007).
“Galleries Downtown: Helen Mirra,” The New Yorker (15 January 2007), p. 13.
Cerizza, Luca, “Looking back: Solo shows”, Frieze No. 104 (January-February 2007).
Wilk, Deborah. “Art Review: Helen Mirra,” Time Out New York (11-17 January 2007), p. 70.
Smith, Roberta. “Helen Mirra”, The New York Times (22 December 2006), p. E, 40.
Eleey, Peter. “Reference Material”, Frieze (November 2006), p. 146.
Morton, Tom, “Tropical Abstraction”, Frieze (January 2006), p.147.
Sholis, Brian, “Helen Mirra”, Artforum (January 2007), p. 252-3.
Leinberger, Rena. “Interview: Helen Mirra,” Bridge Magazine (2003).
Möntemann, Nina. Zusammenhänge herstellen, (Hamburg: Kunstverein, 2003).
Walker, Hamza “Helen Mirra,” Cream 3 (London: Phaidon, 2003).
Végh, Christina. Land Land (catalog) (Basel: Kunsthalle, 2003).
Artner, Alan. “Chicagoans of the year-Helen Mirra: Concepts Fuel Work,” Chicago Tribune (29 December 2002).
Stein, Lisa. “Helen Mirra adopts an assertive air,” Chicago Tribune (20 December 2002), p. 7, 23.
Orchard, William. Tableau Vol. 4, No. 1(Spring 2002), p. 3.
“Goings on about town,” The New Yorker (28 October 2002).
Richard, Frances. Declining Interval Lands (brochure) (2002)
Elms, Anthony. Here and Now (catalog) (Chicago: Whitewalls, 2002)
Rugoff, Ralph. Sudden Glory (catalog) (San Francisco: CCAC, 2002)
Palmer, Laurie. Seems (booklet) (2001)
Snodgrass, Susan. “Helen Mirra,” Art in America (December 2001), p. 124.
Hixson, Kathryn. “Helen Mirra,” New Art Examiner (November 2001), p. 83.
Bolle, Susuanna. “Tones and Drones in Chicago,” XLR8R#54 (November 2001), p 26.
Yood, James. “Helen Mirra,” Art Forum (September 2001), p. 198.
Princenthal, Nancy. “Artist's Book Beat,” Art on Paper (September 2001),
p. 98.
Meyer, Bill. “Music Review: Transmissions,” Chicago Tribune (14 August 2001).
Erickson, Karl. “Chicago Five,” artnet.com, (18 August 2000).
Spector, Buzz. “Helen Mirra: Names and Poems,” The Octopus (July 2000).
Johnson, Ken. “Recommended/Last Chance: Helen Mirra,” New York Times (June 2000).
“Helen Mirra: Field Geometry,” Other Music (June 2000)
Erickson, Karl. “On Books: Helen Mirra,” New Art Examiner (December/January 2000), p. 60.
Swartz, Marc. “Review: Helen Mirra,” Circa88 (Summer 1999).
Meyer, Bill. “Critic's choice,” Chicago Reader (7 May 1999).
Palmer, Laurie. “Review: Helen Mirra,” Frieze 46 (May 1999), p. 97.
Estep, Jan. “Helen Mirra,” New Art Examiner (April 1999), p. 45.
Camper, Fred. “Helen Mirra,” Chicago Reader (11 February 1999), p.32.
Zdadonovics, Olga. “Review: Color TV,” New Art Examiner (April 1997),
p.42.
Gladstone, Neil. “Shall we Trance?” Philadelphia Enquirer (10 December 1998).
Purcell, Greg. “Helen Mirra: Third,” Cakewalk (Fall 1998)
Walker, Hamza and Diana Thater. Persona (catalog) (Basel: Kunsthalle/Chicago: Renaissance Society,1996)
Scanlan, Joe. Youth Culture Killed my Dog (catalog) (Contemporary Arts Council,1995)