Work by UC Artist Focuses Lens on China

Work by University of Cincinnati artist Mark Harris is one of three ongoing exhibits in the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts.

Through a variety of media that includes painting, video, photography

and artist books, Harris, director of the School of Art at UC's top-ranked College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning, explores imagery of intoxication as a form of utopian representation. Harris' work - offered in an exhibit titled "Utopian-Bands and Related Works" - imagines intoxication functioning as an alternative to the aggressively incursive strategies of the historical avant-garde.

Mark Harris, at right, at work in China.

"Utopian-Bands and Related Works" represents the culmination of work following a trip Harris took in the summer of 2006 when he traveled to Beijing to document six Chinese rock bands in an outdoor concert he co-organized with Beijing alternative music promoter Yang Licai.

Harris' work captures a glimpse of the cultural changes sweeping China and celebrates Beijing rock bands as the return of the repressed microcosmic utopian communities once stifled by a Chinese

Communism focused on national social reorganization. The video debut of Utopian-Bands will be accompanied by a series of paper cutouts and photographs informed by Harris' experiences in China.

Harris is an artist, critic and curator. His diverse approaches to making artwork include painting, installation, video, and photography. Harris' work has exhibited nationally and internationally, throughout the North America, Europe and elsewhere.

"Utopian-Bands and Related Works" is co-sponsored by The Kaplan Foundation with additional support from Andrew Stillpass.

Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts

650 Walnut Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2517

513/977-4165

Admission is free.

Hours:

10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Tuesday thru Saturday

Noon-5 p.m., Sunday