Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison:

The Force Majeure

September 12- October 31, 2009
Artist Reception: September 12, 2009 6-8 p.m.

There is a gentle beauty in their work, and much charisma in the otherworldly maps and text panels
that are poetic and personal rather than dryly official. The exhibition is, of course, a call to action,
but is foremost a lyrical meditation on what ecological disaster and collective recovery might one day look like.
Elizabeth Mahoney, The Guardian, 2008


Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison will be exhibiting a new multimedia installation
titled The Force Majeure at Cardwell Jimmerson Contemporary Art. The Force
Majeure takes form as a body of photos, text, drawings, large-scale mappings,
ecologically based proposals and global warming narratives. Indeed, the crisis of
global warming is not a recent concern for these artists, but one they have
addressed throughout an exhibition career going back to 1970. (The 1970-71
period, for example witnessed the Harrisons’ Ecosystem of the Western Salt Works at
LACMA’s famous – or notorious – Art and Technology exhibition, their controversial
Portable Fish Farm project at London’s Hayward Gallery and as well, a spirited debate
with artist Robert Smithson on the paradoxes of art and ecology). The Harrisons, whose
proposals have influenced long-term public policy planning, are internationally recognized
for their visionary artworks grounded in the natural sciences.

8568 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
www.cardwelljimmerson.com
310-815-1100
Tuesday-Sunday
11AM until 6PM