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Sarah Morris Biography
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Sarah Morris was born in America and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Programme and divides her time between New York and London. Morris is principally a painter but she also makes films, photographs and drawings and has curated a number of exhibitions including the critically acclaimed Hospital.
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In the mid 1990s, Morris made text paintings, translating the iconic vocabulary of the media headline into visual statements in a bright pop palette. She recast the emotive power of words such as ‘insane’, ‘guilty’ and ‘liar’ in the same colour and sans serif typeface that she also used for words such as ‘Johnny’, ‘sugar’ and ‘donuts’. These text paintings evoke urban America filtered through a blank Warholian aesthetic. Her later Midtown and Neon series paintings took urban architecture as their starting point, fragmenting the facades of Manhattan skyscrapers or the anonymous hotel architecture of Las Vegas as their starting points. The paintings present graphically reduced details of the building facades as structural all-over linear grids. Whilst these paintings resonate formally with the rationalist modernist strategies running from Piet Mondrian to Peter Halley, for Morris their formal reduction is the product of a semiotically distilled reference to the urban world. Morris studied semantics at Brown University and her work is informed by an interest in signs and the de-coding of the built environment.
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In the Neon series, the grids are dramatically pushed on to the diagonal, making the images incredibly dynamic with multiple and overlapping vanishing points that seem to convey a sense of speed. The paintings are meticulously executed in gleaming household gloss paint and the reserved areas of the grids read as both the actual glazing of the building as well as compact fields of vibrant unmodulated colour. Each painting repeats particular colour modules and orchestrates their accelerated interaction in various sequences that discharge both glamour and the magnetic pull of the city with its constant circulation and neon lights. These radiant hard-edged paintings with their looming vertiginous planes that seem to be viewed from above, below and even mid-air as if flying by in a helicopter, act like stimulants conveying a filmic sense of urban spectacle.
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Morris has also made a series of portraits, abstracted and codified into flat blocks of colour. She has made two films that explore passage through the city. Her mesmeric second film AM/PM was shot on location in Las Vegas.
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Sarah Morris has had numerous group and solo exhibitions. In 2000 she has had solo shows at MOMA, Oxford, Galerie fur Zeitgennosiche Kunst, Leipzig and the Kunsthalle, Zurich.
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| Selected Exhibitions |
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2008
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White Cube, London (solo)
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2008
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Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna (solo)
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2007
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Sarah Morris, Whitechapel Laboratory, London (solo)
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2007
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Chinatowns, Max Hetzler Gallery, Berlin (solo)
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2007
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The Towne Index, Galerie Air de Paris, Paris (solo)
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2007
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Robert Towne, Ring Paintings, and Origami, Fredrich Petzel gallery, New York (solo)
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2007
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When We Build, Let Us Think That We Build Forever, BALTIC The Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead -UK
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2007
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Soufflé, eien Massenausstellung, curated by Franz West, Kunstraum, Innsbruck
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2007
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Perspektiv 07, Lenbachhaus, Munich
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2007
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Contemporary Galleries Collection, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio
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2007
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Reflection, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev
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2006
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A Severe Insult to the Brain, Meyer Kainer gallery, Wien (solo)
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2006
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Midtown, Milton Keynes gallery, London (solo)
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2006
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Artist in Focus, program in conjunction with Rotterdam Film Festival, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (solo)
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2006
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Carbonic Anhydride, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
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2006
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Busy Going Crazy, La Maison Rouge, Paris
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2006
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This is America, Centraal Museum, Utrecht
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2006
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Intouchable, l’idéal transparence, curated by Guillaume Désanges et François Piron, Villa Arson, Nice
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2006
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All Hawaii Entrées/Lunar Reggae, curated by Philippe Parreno, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
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2006
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Nouvelles acquisitions, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
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2005
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Ambiance, K21 Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf
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2005
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Big Bang, Centre Pompidou, Paris
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2005
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Architecture Invisible, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris
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2005
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Present perfect, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York
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2005
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Los Angeles, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (solo)
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2005
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Los Angeles, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (solo)
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2005
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Endeavor, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (solo)
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2005
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Los Angeles, Friedrich Petzel gallery, New York (solo)
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2005
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To Film a Though in Action, Moderna Musseet, Stockholm (solo)
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2005
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Los Angeles Drawings, Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Köln (solo)
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2004
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'Treasure Island' Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (group)
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2004
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'Heißkalt - Sammlung Scharpff' Kunsthalle Hamburg, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (group)
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2004
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'Bar Nothing' Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (solo)
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2004
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White Cube, London (solo)
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2003
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'Lost Weekend' Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York (solo)
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2003
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'Miami - Film Installation' with Darren Almond, Paul Morrison, Craig Kalpalkjian and Haluk Akakçe (solo)
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2003
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'Adorno-zum 100. Geburtstag' Kunstverein Frankfurt (group)
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2003
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'Einbildung – Das Wahrnehmen in der Kunst'; steirischer herbst 2003 Kunsthaus Graz (group)
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2003
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'fast forward.Media Art/ Sammlung Goetz' ZKM, Karlsruhe (group)
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2003
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'New abstract painting - painting abstract now - Abstraktion in der neuen Malerei' Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (group)
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2003
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'Architecture Schmarchitecture' Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (group)
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2003
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'Painting Pictures, Painting and Media in the Digital Age' Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (group)
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2003
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'Days like These: The Tate Triennal Exhibtion of Contemporary British Art' Tate Britain, London (group)
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2003
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'La Question' Magasin Centre d'art contemporain, Grenoble (group)
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2003
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'Abstraction Now ' Künstlerhaus Wien (group)
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2002
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Palais de Tokyo, Paris (solo)
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2002
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'Capital' Site Santa Fe (solo)
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2002
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'Cinecity: The Films of Sarah Morris' Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C. (solo)
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2002
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'Project #77' MOMA, New York (solo)
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2002
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Sarah Morris, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (solo)
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2002
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'At Speed' (with Darren Almond), Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
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2002
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Public Affairs Von Beuys bis Zittel: Das Öffentliche in der Kunst Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich (group)
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2002
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Le Paysage dans l'art d'aujourd'hui Maison de la culture de Bourges, France (group)
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2002
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Centre of Attraction 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius (group)
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2002
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Dressing Down Barbican Art Gallery, London (group)
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2002
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Painting on the Move Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel, Kunsthalle Basel (group)
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2002
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Ruina e Utopia Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Brasilia (group)
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2002
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Busan Biennale Busan, Korea (group)
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2002
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Rapture: Art's Seduction by Fashion since 1970 Barbican Art Gallery, London (group)
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2002
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Sao Paolo Biennial, Sao Paolo (group)
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2002
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Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (group)
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2002
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Urgent Painting Musee d"Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (catalogue)
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2002
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Embracing the Present: The UBS Paine Webber Art Collection The Portland Musem, Portland (group)
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2001
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Das Lied von der Erde Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (group)
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2001
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Berlin/Los Angeles Film Festival of Architecture and Urbanism, MAK
Center for Art and Architecture, L.A. at the Schindler House School of Architecture, University of Southern California (group)
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2001
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Die Sammlung Olbricht Teil 2. Without Hesitation Gesellschartf für Aktuelle Kunst & Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen (group)
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2001
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Geometric & Gestus Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg (group)
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2001
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Beautiful Productions. Art to play, art to wear, art to own Whitechapel, London (group)
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2001
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c/o Atle Gerhardsen, Berlin (group)
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2001
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Art Transplant British Consul, New York (catalogue)
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2001
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Wild Walls MAK Center, Schindler House, Los Angeles (group)
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2001
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Casino Stedelijk Museum Veer Actuele Kunst, Ghent (catalogue)
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2001
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The Mystery of Painting Sammlung Goetz, Munich (catalogue)
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2001
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Beautiful Productions Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (group)
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2001
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Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism (curated by Dave Hickey) Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico (catalogue)
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2001
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Hybrids International Contemporary Painting, Tate Liverpool (catalogue)
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2001
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Comfort, Reclaiming Place in a Virtual World Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio (catalogue)
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2001
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A Pied D'Oeuvre Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris (group)
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2001
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Playing Amongst the Ruins Royal College of Art, London (catalogue)
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2001
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Shopping Generali Foundation, Vienna (catalogue)
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2001
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'Crystal' Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York (solo)
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2001
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'Dulles' Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Cologne (solo)
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