biography
Helen Mirra was born in 1970 in Rochester, New York. She lives and works in Muir Beach, California.
Mirra’s pieces are formally minimal and made with natural materials, such as wool blankets, raw linen, hand-dyed cotton banding. In a practice dictated by the action of walking, an essential component and ever underlining to Mirra's practice, she has produced weavings, prints, writings, sound recordings. Aware of practices of artists such as Anni Albers, André Cadere, John Cage, Douglas Huebler, and Ree Morton, Mirra has evolved her specific and personal attitude, which travels on the edge where logic and geology meet time.
Helen Mirra was born in 1970 in Rochester, New York. She lives and works in Muir Beach, California.
Mirra’s pieces are formally minimal and made with natural materials, such as wool blankets, raw linen, hand-dyed cotton banding. In a practice dictated by the action of walking, an essential component and ever underlining to Mirra's practice, she has produced weavings, prints, writings, sound recordings. Aware of practices of artists such as Anni Albers, André Cadere, John Cage, Douglas Huebler, and Ree Morton, Mirra has evolved her specific and personal attitude, which travels on the edge where logic and geology meet time.
Helen Mirra select solo and two-persons exhibitions include: No Horizon, BAMPFA, Berkeley, California (2019); Gehen, weben / Camminare, tessere, Kunst Meran / Merano Arte, Meran (2017); Hourly Directional, with Ernst Karel, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2014); Gehend (Field Recordings 1-3), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2011).
Her work has been included in group exhibitions and institutions such as: Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo (2018); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2018); MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago (2017); Mudam Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2013); Nasjonalmuseet Oslo (2012); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2011); Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2011); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2008); Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2004); Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley (2003); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001). She took part in the 50th Biennale di Venezia (2003) and in the 30th Biennal of São Paulo (2012).
gallery exhibitions
images

6th walking comma, 29 May, Cajas, 2014
black and white photo and text
26 × 42,4 cm; 27 × 43,4 × 3,4 cm framed
public exhibitions

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Boston
Common Threads: Weaving Stories Across Time
4.10.2018 – 13.1.2020
Photo by Stewart Clements. Standard Incomparable (partial), organized by Helen Mirra, 2015-2016. Installation view: Common Threads: Weaving Stories Across Time, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
press
Virtual walk-through: Standard Incomparable an international project begun by Helen Mirra comprising 65 weavings made by weavers in 16 countries
FAD Magazine
April 6, 2020
Helen Mirra and Sean Thackrey at BAMPFA: Seeing overlooked beauty in the everyday
Berkeleyside
July 10, 2019
"This is my interest anyway - to not-demand" - Interview with Helen Mirra
Metropolis M
September 8, 2017
publications

Escritura-a-través
(Mexico City: Merve, 2018) paperback, 278 pages
Merve Verlag
Mexico City
2018

Helen Mirra: Edge Habitat Materials
WhiteWalls / University of Chicago Press
Chicago
2014

Helen Mirra Im Grunewald Berlin
Berliner Künstlerprogramm / DAAD
Berlin
2006

Names & Poems
WhiteWalls
Chicago
1999
video
Acts for placing woollen and linen
2020
Solo exhibition at Cample Line, Cample, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, UK Video scripted and narrated by Lucy Dale, filmed by Emma Dove
