Harrell Fletcher: I’ll Follow You

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Harrell Fletcher creates projects that explore the dynamics of social spaces and the interactions between the people who populate them. He is interested in modifying social situations to draw out and share local knowledge and skills. He has combined gallery exhibitions and temporary public art projects to create what Joseph Beuys referred to as ‘social sculpture’.

On Saturday 10th September Harrell Fletcher invited the public to our local park, Leathermarket Gardens SE1 to join in an afternoon of activities led by local experts.12 different individuals demonstrated various skills over the course of the afternoon and the public followed their lead. It rained that day and so we went into the gallery that became a centre for activities ranging from human pyramid forming to free form dance. The event was filmed by the artist and forms part of a solo exhibition that also includes his painted snapshots and past work.

He looks for existing ways that people engage in and value everyday life. By adding structures like organizing a day of fifteen minute physical activities that are lead by local experts and offered to the general public, Fletcher aims to highlight the resources and possible interactions that exist in a given location. By documenting and exhibiting the results Fletcher tries to include a broad range of people as collaborators in his practice as an artist, and to allow them to share their experience with a larger audience within a venue that is valuing their abilities and qualities as individuals. “Fletcher’s temporary projects embrace a harmony between people in the service of creating a moment or object of beauty.” Brian Sholis, Flash Art

Harrell Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on a variety of socially engaged, interdisciplinary projects for over a decade. He has exhibited at SF MoMA, the de Young Museum, The Berkeley Art Museum, and Yerba Buena Center For The Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Drawing Center, Socrates Sculpture Park,The Sculpture Center, and Smackmellon in NYC, DiverseWorks and Aurora Picture show in Houston, TX, PICA in Portland, OR, CoCA and The Seattle Art Museum in Seattle, WA, Signal in Malmo, Sweden, Domain de Kerguehennec in France, and The Royal College of Art in London. Fletcher exhibits in San Francisco at Jack Hanley Gallery, in NYC at Christine Burgin Gallery, and in London at Laura Bartlett Gallery. He was a participant in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. In 2002 Fletcher started Learning To Love You More, an ongoing participatory web site with Miranda July. He is the 2005 recipient of the Alpert Award in Visual Arts, and will also be an ArtPace Resident in San Antonio, TX. Fletcher is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Harrell Fletcher
I’ll Follow You