Artist Statement

As I embark on this final life chapter, I am struck by three realizations: that to enjoy a fulfilled life, it is necessary that I make something; that my own lived experience is now my raw material; and that my faith in the transformative power of art in all its forms remains as strong as ever.

In my current work, my search for numinous presence remains a constant but its locus has migrated from abstract thought to the deeply felt as I embrace my own history and the revelations of the everyday world. I look now to the immediacy of the quotidian, the fleeting moment, the elusive detail, the slight gesture, certain that what is most important resides there, that the widest vista opens through the smallest aperture, that the greatest joy emanates from the briefest moment. It may just be that the real work is only now beginning.

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Biography

Rita Myers is an artist whose work spans performance, installation, photography, and writing. She attended Douglass College, Rutgers University and received her BA in 1969 with High Honors in her major of Fine Arts. At Douglass she studied with John Goodyear, Geoff Hendricks, and Peter Stroud. In 1970, she moved to New York City to pursue graduate studies in Fine Arts at Hunter College, City University of New York. There, she studied with Robert Morris, Linda Nochlin and Vincent Longo. She earned her MA in 1974.

While in graduate school, Myers was one of a small cadre of artists who began exploring video as a new tool to be used in creating their performance pieces and installations. Her performance work of the early 1970s involved mediated encounters with her own body, often guided by the closed-circuit capabilities of video technology. Slow Squeeze 1, documenting one such performance from 1973, was included in the millennial exhibition, The American Century: Art & Culture 1950–2000, Whitney Museum of American Art.

Beginning in 1975 with Investigations/Observations, her early installations utilized pre-recorded video and audio to introduce layers of commentary into what were otherwise pedestrian settings, inviting audiences to take on a participatory role. By 1981, her installations had evolved into large-scale, highly theatrical, and metaphorical environments. With The Allure of the Concentric in 1985, this direction becomes fully realized. Originally shown at the Whitney Museum, this work was included in two landmark exhibitions, American Landscape Video: The Electronic Grove, Carnegie Museum of Art in 1988, and Video-Skulptur Retrospektiv und Aktuell 1963–1989, Kölnischer Kunstverein in Köln, Germany.

Works from this period fuse multiple video sources, text, and sound with sculptural and natural forms, using time-based media to expand the contours of the space into other states and rhythms of being. Juxtaposing elements of landscape and architecture, these formalized, symbolic spaces function as contemplative sites that resonate with evocations of the ritualistic and the mystical. Drawing on sources that range from physics and Jungian psychology to magic and alchemy, and integrating archetypal objects with iconic imagery from nature, these works invoke the mythological and the spiritual, and in Myers’ words, seek to discover “the ways in which ancient archetypes survive as the foundation for current images of reality.”

Her last installation, Resurrection Body, created in 1993, returns to the body as the locus of meaning, mediated now by interactive technologies and giving rise to images that elicit not only shared cultural references but also personal memory. In 2003, this work was included in the Twentieth Anniversary Retrospective Exhibition, World Wide Video Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

In 1995, Myers changed course entirely and accepted a position as Design Manager with Alexander Design Associates, a boutique graphic design firm in Lower Manhattan, where she directed both print and interactive communications. In 2003, she became Executive Design Manager at Macmillan McGraw-Hill. She also moved to Philadelphia, PA in 2003, and ran her own graphic design firm there from 2007 to 2019, offering branding and marketing strategies to clients ranging from non-profits to Fortune 500 companies. Examples of her design work can be found here.

In 2005, an enormous snowfall in Philadelphia prompted Myers to venture into the nearby Wissahickon Park, where she discovered again her reverence for the natural world and an array of new images. This encounter resulted in a series of photographic works based on seasonal cycles. She has gone on to create other photographic series, often arising from everyday encounters with nature. A series from 2023, Fusions: Mis Dos Paisajes, juxtaposes images from the landscapes of the states of Pennsylvania in the U.S. and Jalisco in Mexico. And the current series, Disruptions, uses landscape elements to evoke unlikely and startling events.

Myers has also returned to the written word. The presence of a textual component was often central to her installations, whether in the form of a long narrative arc or as intermittent voiced phrases deployed throughout the space. The new work explores various forms of memoir, lyrical poetry, and visual poetry.

Myers is the recipient of many awards, including fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Artists’ Public Services (CAPS), the New York State Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the Jerome Foundation. In 1983, she was inducted into the Douglass Society for Distinguished Achievement.

She has taught at numerous institutions, including the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, and The University of Hartford, School of Art in Hartford, CT.

She currently resides in Philadelphia and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with her wife, Bonnie Strahs.

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Education

1974
M.A. Hunter College, City University of New York

1969
B.A. Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ with Honors, High Honors in Art

1968
Yale University Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk, CT

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Collections

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, Austria

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Awards

Douglass Society for Distinguished Achievement, Member 1983

First Prize, Tenth World Wide Video Festival, Kijkhuis, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1992

Durbin Faculty Development Grant, Cooper Union, 2001

New York State Council on the Arts, Media Production Grant, 1998, 1991, 1985, 1983

New York State Council on the Arts, Media Distribution Grant, 1993

Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, New Works Program, 1990, 1984

Checkerboard Foundation, 1989

Art Matters, Inc., 1988

National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Artist Fellowship, 1987, 1980, 1976

National Endowment for the Arts, Media Arts Grant, 1987

Jerome Foundation, 1986, 1984

National Endowment for the Arts, Interarts Grant, 1984

Creative Artists Public Service Program (CAPS) Fellowship, 1981, 1976

Artists Cable Project Grant, Center for Non-Broadcast Television, 1979

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Other Professional Activities

Panel, Creative Artists Public Service Program (CAPS), 1977

Media Arts Panel, New York State Council on the Arts, 1985–1988

Panel, New York City Film/Video Program, Jerome Foundation, 1988–1990

Film/Video Artists Panel, MacDowell Colony, 1990–1993

Initiated “Electric Spaces,” Video/Audio Installation Touring Project of Parabola Arts Foundation, 1988

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Teaching Employment

Cooper Union, New York, NY, Adjunct Professor, 1995–2005

Maine College of Art, Non-Residency Studio Advisor, 2001–2002

Cooper Union, New York, NY, Guest Artist, 1994–1995

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, Lecturer, 1994–95

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, Visiting Assistant Professor, 1991–92

Columbia College, Chicago, IL, Visiting Artist, Spring 1987

The School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, Instructor, Spring 1984

Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, CT, Assistant Professor, 1978–83

University of California, Irvine, Visiting Instructor, Winter 1980

Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Visiting Instructor, Spring 1977

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Design Employment

Rita Myers Graphic Design, Philadelphia, PA, Principal/Creative Director, 2007–2019

Macmillan McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, Executive Design Manager/Art Director 2003–2007

Alexander Design Associates, Inc., New York, NY, Design Manager/Designer, 1995–2002

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Bibliography

Marter, Joan. Women Artists on the Leading Edge: Visual Arts at Douglass College. Rutgers University Press. 2019.

Schor, Gabriele. Feminist Avant-Garde: Art of the 1970s in the Verbund Collection, Vienna. 2016.

Ashton, Diane. “Rita Myers.” Artists on the Edge: Douglass College and the Rutgers MFA. Mabel Smith Douglass Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, March 9–June 6, 2005. h

Hanhardt, John G. “Rita Myers.” Digital Twentieth World Wide Video Festival. World Wide Video Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 8–25, 2003.

Barlow, Melinda. “Studio as Study: A Selection of Drawings by American Video Artists.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. May 2002.

Fischer, Barbara. Love Gasoline. Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada, May 23–June 29, 1996.

Lippard, Lucy R. The Pink Glass Swan. Feminist Essays on Art. The New Press, NY. 1995.

Sturken, Marita. “The Moving Image in Space: Public Funding and the Installation Form.” Set in Motion. The New York State Council on the Arts, 1994.

Farkas, Solange. Videobrasil, 10th Festival Internacional de Arte Eletrônica. São Paulo, November 20–25 and Rio de Janeiro, November 29–December 4, 1994.

van Vliet, Tom. Tenth World Wide Video Festival. Kijkhuis, The Hague, The Netherlands, April 6–19, 1992.

Wasserman, Tina. Review. New Art Examiner. Sept. 1991.

Sheridan, Lee. Review. Art New England. Feb. 1991.

West, Justin P. Rita Myers: Archaeologist in a Phantom City. Moving Images, November–December, 1991.

Siersma, Betsy. Rita Myers: Phantom Cities. University Gallery, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. September 15 – December 16, 1990.

McCombie, Mel. Review. Arts Magazine. May 1990.

Liss, Andrea. Essay in exhibition Continuum and the Moment. Art Gallery, California State University, Fullerton, 1989.

Nemeczek, Alfred. “Video-Aus Einer Marotte Wird Kunst.” Art. March 1989.

Morse, Margaret. “Interiors: A Review of American Landscape Video.” Video Networks. Feb/Mar 1989.

Reveaux, Tony. “Video’s New Territory,” Artweek. Dec. 10, 1988.

Judson, William D. “American Landscape Video: The Electronic Grove.” Carnegie Magazine. May–June 1988.

Hanhardt, John G. “The Discourse of Landscape Video Art: From Fluxus to Post-Modernism,” in exhibition American Landscape Video. The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, 1988.

Paoletti, John T. “Rita Myers and Deep Time.” Arts Magazine. February 1988.

Morgan, Robert C. Review. Arts Magazine. January 1988.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. “Wild Stalking.” Cover. November 1987.

Brenson, Michael. Review. The New York Times. October 30, 1987.

Hanhardt, John G. “The Allure of the Real,” in exhibition Rita Myers–RiftrRise. Alternative Museum, New York, Sept. 26–Nov. 7, 1987.

Antonsen, Lasse. Review. Art New England. November 1986.

Sturken, Marita. “The Circle Game.” Afterimage. December 1985.

Hosansky, David. “F.Y.I. Video Installations.” International Television. May 1985.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. Review. East Village Eye. November 1985.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. Review. Afterimage. February 1985.

Hanhardt, John G. Exhibition Notes. The Allure of the Concentric. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Sept. 28–Nov. 3, 1985.

Lischka, G.J. Alles und Noch Vielmehr. Das Poetische ABC. Benteli Verlag Bern, 1985.

Harrison, Helen A. “The Workings of the Artist’s Mind.” The New York Times. Sept. 23, 1984.

Lord, Katherine. “It’s the Thought that Counts.” Afterimage. October 1983.

Rice, Shelley. Introduction to Video Installation 1983. Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, Nov. 5 – Dec. 2, 1983.

Bannon, Anthony. Review. The Buffalo News. February 16, 1983.

Potter, Jessica. Review. Art New England. February 1983.

Gever, Martha. “Traveling Light–CAPS Video Goes National.” Afterimage. April 1982.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. Review. Live 6/7. 1982.

Rice, Shelley. “Mythic Space, The Video Installations of Rita Myers.” Afterimage. January 1982.

Rice, Shelley. Introduction in exhibition Schemes. Elise Meyer Gallery, New York. June 1981.

Rice, Shelley. Review. Artforum. May 1981.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. “Biennial Video at the Whitney.” New York Arts Journal. April 1979.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. “Timeless Floating A Rapture.” The Soho Weekly News. May 5, 1977.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. “What Is Happening Here?” The Soho Weekly News. Feb. 3, 1977.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. Review. Art News. October 1976.

Wiegand, Ingrid. “Video Arrives at the Whitney.” The Soho Weekly News. July 29, 1976.

Lippard, Lucy R. “The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth: Woman’s Body Art.” Art in America. May–June 1976.

Frank, Peter. Review. Art News. March 1976.

Wooster, Ann-Sargent. Review. Artforum. February 1976.

Lippard, Lucy R. From The Center: Feminist Essays on Woman’s Art. E.P. Dutton & Co., NY. 1976.

Heinemann, Susan. Review. Artforum. Summer 1975.

Bear, Liza. “Rita Myers, A Remote Intimacy.” Interview. Avalanche. Winter 1975.

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Publications

“Morning Walk.” Beyond Words, the international magazine of word and image. Issue 45, March 2024.

“In the pandemic, I remember you.” Beyond Words, the international magazine of word and image. Issue 7, October 2020.

“Directions/Questions: Approaching a Future Mythology,” in Illuminating Video; An Essential Guide to Video Art. Edited by Doug Hall and Sally Jo.Fifer. Aperture with BAVC, 1991.

“In the Planet of the Eye.” Exhibition Catalog. Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Jan. 4–25, 1985.

Installation texts. Gnome Baker 1. October 1976.

Exhibitions

1993
‍Resurrection Body and Correspondences: Day into Night into Day, World Wide Video Centre, The Hague, The Netherlands

1992
‍Phantom Cities, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA

1991
‍Phantom Cities, Madison Art Center, Madison, WI

1990
‍Phantom Cities, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In The Drowning Pool, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA

1989
‍In the Drowning Pool, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA

1988
‍RiftrRise, R.H. Love Modern, Chicago, IL

1987
‍RiftrRise, Alternative Museum, New York, NY

1986
‍RiftrRise, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA

1985
‍Gate, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

The Allure of the Concentric, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1983
‍The Forms that Begin at the Outer Rim, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT

The Forms that Begin at the Outer Rim, Media Study, Buffalo, NY

1981
‍Dancing in the Land where Children Are the Light, The Kitchen, New York, NY

The Points of a Star, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

1980
‍The Points of a Star, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1978
‍Forward, 2nd version, Student Union Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

1977
‍Barricade to Blue, The Kitchen, New York, NY

Line-up/With and Against Them, 2nd version, Williams College, Williamstown, MA

1976
‍Once Before You, The Kitchen, New York, NY

Line-up/With and Against Them, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

Forward, Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY

1975
‍Investigation/Observations, Walters Hall Art Gallery, Douglass College, New Brunswick, NJ

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Group

2024
Motion, Decagon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

The Fall Members Juried Exhibition, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA

‍Docile Bodies, Duane Thomas Gallery, New York, NY

Makers Alley Spring/Summer Exhibition, Lambertville Hall, Lambertville, NJ
Juried Exhibition

EXPO Chicago 2024, Duane Thomas Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL

CONNECTIONS VIII: Artists Selecting Artists, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY
Invitational

From the Center: an exhibition based on “From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art” By Lucy R. Lippard, Duane Thomas Gallery, New York, NY

2023
‍Mt. Airy Art Garage Annual Photography Show 2023, Mt. Airy Art Garage, Philadelphia, PA
Juried Exhibition

4th Annual Makers Alley Juried Art & Artisan Exhibition, New Hope Arts Center, New Hope, PA

2014–18
‍The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s, Artworks from the Sammlung Verbund Collection, Vienna, Austria,
Traveling, multiple European venues

2010
‍100 Years (version #2, ps1, nov 2009), P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY

2005
‍Artists on the Edge: Douglass College and the Rutgers MFA, Mabel Smith Douglass Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

2003
Twentieth Anniversary Retrospective Exhibition, World Wide Video Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2002
‍First Decade: Video from the EAI Archives, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Body Regimes, Videos in Progress, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

1999
The American Century: Art & Culture 1950–2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1998
‍Inaugural, Art Nation, Florence Lynch Gallery, New York, NY

1996
‍Fifteen Degrees from Rutgers, Civic Square Building Galleries, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Love Gasoline, Mercer Union Gallery, Toronto, Ontario

1994 Independent Curators Incorporated Benefit Exhibition, Sonnabend Gallery, New York, NY

Videobrasil International Festival, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1992 Tenth World Wide Video Festival, Kijkhuis, The Hague, The Netherlands

1991 Matrix and Transformation, Hewlett Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

The Pleasure Machine: Recent American Video, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI

1990 New Music and Art Festival, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH

1989 Video-Skulptur Retrospektiv und Aktuell 1963–1989, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, Germany

Video-Skulptur Retrospektiv und Aktuell 1963–1989, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany

Making Their Mark: Women Artists Move into the Mainstream, 1970–1985, Cincinnati Art Museum, OH

Continuum and the Moment, Art Gallery, California State University, Fullerton, CA

American Landscape Video: The Electronic Grove, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA

1988
‍American Landscape Video: The Electronic Grove, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA

American Landscape Video: The Electronic Grove, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA

1987
‍Standing Ground: Sculpture by American Women, The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH

1986
‍Videokunst, Kunsthaus, Nurnberg, Germany

International Forum, Video; International Film Festival, Berlin, Germany

1985
‍Medien Operative, Berlin, Germany

Alternating Currents, Alternative Museum, New York, NY

Kunst mit Eigen-Sinn, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria

Between Science and Fiction, Biennal de São Paulo, Brazil

1984 Video and Ritual, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Preparation and Proposition, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY

1983
‍Video as Attitude, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

1981
‍CAPS/ICI 1981 Traveling Video Festival, various sites, 1981–84

Video Classics, The Bronx Museum of Art, New York, NY

Schemes, Elise Meyer Gallery, New York, NY
Traveled

Alternatives in Retrospect, The New Museum, New York, NY

1979
‍Everson Video Revue, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Traveled

Small is Beautiful, Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA
Traveled

1979
‍Pyramidal Influence: The Great Pyramid Show, Wright State University, Dayton, OH
Traveled

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1977
‍Open Stacks, Williams College, Williamstown, MA

Works to be Destroyed, West Side Highway, New York, NY

The College Gallery, Kean College of New Jersey, Union, NJ

Jamaica Arts Center, Jamaica, Queens, New York, NY

1976
‍New American Filmmakers Series, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

International Cultureel Centrum, Antwerp, Belgium

A Month of Sundays, P.S.1, Long Island City, New York, NY

Ten in Situ, Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY

1975
112 Greene Street Workshop, New York, NY

Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium

25-2000, N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago, IL 

1975
Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Ferrera, Italy

Ideas at the Idea Warehouse, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, New York, NY

1974
‍Projekt ’74, Kunsthalle Köln, Kölnischer Kunstverein,Köln, Germany

1973
‍Circuit, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Traveled

c. 7500, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA
Traveled

Air Art - Art Works for the Broadcast Media, WBAI FM Radio, Nov.9.

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, OH.

1972
‍Communications, Inhibodress Gallery, Sydney, Australia.

This Is Your Roof, Encuentros, Pamplona, Spain.

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