Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work

Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work will explore the juncture between art and science, art and ecology, and art and social activism in the work of Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison, known as the Harrisons. Founding members of the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego, the husband-and-wife team were among the earliest and most notable ecological artists. This is the first exhibition to focus on their California work, nearly 20 projects produced between the late 1960s and 2000s. Responding to growing environmental awareness, the Harrisons pushed conceptual art in new directions. The couple agreed that they would only take on projects that benefited the ecosystem. Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work revisits the Harrisons’ groundbreaking ecological concepts through re-staged performance artworks, drawings, paintings, photography, collages, maps, archival documentation of large-scale installations, and unrealized proposals for real-world ecological solutions.

A 17,600-square feet four-part exhibition about this pioneering couple in Ecological Art will be presented as a multi-site exhibition in four locations around San Diego simultaneously, including La Jolla Historical Society (organizer), California Center for the Arts, Escondido, San Diego Public Library Gallery, and the Mandeville Art Gallery at UC San Diego. The exhibition locations will examine the California works chronologically and thematically: Urban Ecologies, The Prophetic Works, Saving the West, and Future Gardens. Through immersive installations, California Work will reveal the innovative ways in which the Harrisons engaged with science and how, grounded in prescient concerns about the issue of climate change (a topic they first addressed in 1974), they took on an increasingly planetary frame of reference.

Curated by Tatiana Sizonenko (UC San Diego, PhD ’13).

Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work Exhibition Dates:
La Jolla Historical Society: September 19, 2024–January 19, 2025 / California Center for the Arts, Escondido: September 21, 2024–January 19, 2025 / San Diego Public Library Gallery: September 21, 2024–January 12, 2025 / Mandeville Art Gallery at UC San Diego: September 28, 2024–December 7, 2024.

Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work is among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art.

Upcoming exhibitions
I am sending you love from the future UC San Diego MFA Preview Exhibition, January 9–February 8, 2024, Artists: Cuyler Ballenger, Maddie Butler, Coralys Carter, Nykelle DeVivo, Olivia Kayang, Moe Penders, John Singletary. Curatorial advisor: Irene Georgia Tsatsos. 

About the Mandeville Art Gallery
The Mandeville Art Gallery, previously known as the University Art Gallery, is a long-standing fixture on the UC San Diego campus with a five-decade history of presenting innovative art in the context of a major research university. Managed by the School of Arts and Humanities and located on the west end of Mandeville Center, the gallery operates as an institute for transformative contemporary art serving both the university and the local community, and it newly re-opened after extensive renovations in March 2023.

Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 12–8pm. Admission: free. Parking & directions.