Richard Garrison examines mundane aesthetics of suburban American life and consumer culture. While parked in the lots of various stores, public buildings, offices, and schools over a period of six months, he tracked the distance and direction of the walk from his car to the entrance of his destination using a hand-held GPS device. All that information is represented graphically in this work: the length of each line is determined by the distance walked, and the direction is indicated by the line’s positioning around the circle, which corresponds to a north/south/east/west compass. The dominant color of each destination’s sign determines the color of its line. Viewers might recognize, for example, the bright Home Depot orange of the line labeled “home improvement store” or the USPS® Blue of the one labeled “post office.” Garrison’s methodological approach both parodies and pays homage to the systematic abstraction elsewhere in this exhibition.
–When We Were Young: Rethinking Abstraction From The University At Albany Art Collections (1967-Present)

–American Playlist: Selections From The University At Albany Art Collections

RICHARD GARRISON (b. 1971, Albany, NY; lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY) Garrison’s work in Body Maps pays homage to the mundane aspects of daily life by tracking his daily movements with a GPS device. Garrison has had solo exhibitions at The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ (2018); the Esther Prangley Rice Gallery, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD (2007); I space, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, IL (2004); and Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (1995). He has been featured in group exhibitions at the High Line, New York, NY, International Print Center, New York, NY, and Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY (all 2010); Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ (2007); Radford U. Art Museum, Radford, VA (2006); Robert Hull Fleming Museum, The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT (2005); and Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA (2001). He received a BS in studio art from the College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY (1993) and an MFA from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (1995).
–Body Maps: Works from the University at Albany Fine Art Collections in Conversation with Past Exhibiting Artists