Harry Dodge

Faculty, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts

Academic Program Affiliation(s): MFA Sculpture

Biography: Sculpture. In the early '90s Dodge was one of the founders of a community-based performance space, The Bearded Lady, which launched several writers and artists onto the national stage. During that time, Harry also made several large-scale evening length monologues/ performances which contained elaborate sets, and layered both narrative and conceptual elements. In the latter part of '90's the artist wrote, directed, edited and starred in a narrative feature, By Hook or By Crook, which premiered at the Sundance Festival to critical acclaim, and is currently commercially available. Dodge earned an MFA from Bard College (2001) and has been working in sculpture, video, drawing and writing since that time.
From 2004 to 2009, Dodge was part of a collaborative video-making team that was selected for inclusion in the Whitney Biennial 2008. This collaboration's video work has been extensively featured and well-reviewed in many periodicals, including Frieze, Artforum, New York Times, New Yorker, Art in America. Most recently, the collaboration's 2008 solo show at Elizabeth Dee was listed in TimeOut NY (by Howard Halle) as one of the top 5 shows of the year. This work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Getty Institute, and the Hammer Museum. Current teaching positions include UCLA, UCSD and CalArts in sculpture, video and writing. Harry recently has undertaken a collaborative urban composting project called TESTHOLE.
The sculpture and video work contain a range of elements: found and handmade objects and floorpieces, installations, environments, situations, performance, costumes, vocal work, lighting effects, aspects of theater, edits, community-based action, comedy and drawings. Recurring themes include: materiality and making, states of matter, the idea of shape, the unnameable, specificity and the generic (especially as it relates to human response), between-ness. Influences include Buckminster Fuller, Christopher Alexander, Chaos, William James, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Richard Pryor.
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Phone: 845-758-7481
Department: Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts