Liliana Porter

With enchanting incongruity, Liliana Porter’s work playfully
subverts convention, disrupts time, and messes with reality.
Using a wide range of media, Porter mixes the absurd with
the philosophical, creating extraordinary situations that lure
us unwittingly into the realm of her idiosyncratic cast of
characters.

Drawing from an eclectic collection of figurines, knickknacks,
toys, and souvenirs, Porter features these characters in
unexpected combinations and circumstances. The peculiar
situations she invents, where disparate events occur
simultaneously, or dissimilar characters interact, wittily invite
political, philosophical and existential interpretation.

Some of the characters are brought out of their two-dimen-
sional representations to interact with the real world. Tiny
figures on shelves perform colossal tasks, at once pathetic
and hilarious. Photographs paired with the actual object
depicted, though in different form, bend reality and reverse
time. With masterful simplicity and humor, Porter blends the
real with the representational in hypothetical yet convincing
mini-dramas starring mass-produced, kitsch objects that
inadvertently elicit compassion and laughter.