In recent years Liz Larner has become increasingly acknowledged for her highly original and continual challenge to the use of space and the making of art. Employing a tough, cultural intertextuality in her work Larner has always invoked an exquisite tension through her materials, the manipulation of space, and an always loaded signification. From her early 'Culture' series, to her more spatial installations Larner confronts the viewer with an equation that, in the process, she exposes. In the more recent work Larner has moved toward a fracturing and invading of institutional gallery or museum spaces.
The current show will consist of a suspended, sculptural piece with varied reflective surfaces together with a text/wall painting that encompasses the whole gallery. These two pieces, in juxtaposition, work in a confrontational strategy towards the viewer. The reflector provides a tangible, subjective experience with an identifiable art object, while at the same moment fracturing that encounter and its physical context. The text/wall painting, however, through its non-material nature denies the physical experience, subverting it, even as it is made solid in the many reflective planes and surfaces of the sculpture.
Born in 1960 and a graduate of Cal Arts, Liz Larner lives and works in Los Angeles. One of the most exceptional and important contemporary artists, Larner has had numerous shows in Europe, New York and Los Angeles and was represented in the 1989 Whitney Biennial as well as the recent 'Mind over Matter' exhibit at the Whitney Museum.