Rachel Harrison, Alexander the Great, 2007

Rachel Harrison’s work combines a consummate formalism with a knack for imbuing seemingly abstract elements with multiple meanings, including political ones. She fiercely questions monumentality and the masculine prerogative that goes with it. Harrison creates the bulk of her sculptures by stacking and arranging blocks or slabs of Styrofoam, before covering them in a combination of cement and painterly flourishes. The cherry on top is some sort of found object, either alone or in combination with others. A prime example is this mannequin atop an elongated, paint-splashed form. Wearing a cape, and a backwards-facing Abraham Lincoln mask, the work sends up the great man theory of history with its evocation of the Ancient World’s conqueror standing tall on a clown-colored rock.