LILIANA PORTER
For Instance

Liliana Porter’s work is disarming and dysfunctional. It playfully sub-
verts convention, disrupts time, and messes with reality. In photo-
graphs, 3-dimensional prints, and multiples made with fabric and
thread, Porter mixes the absurd with the philosophical, creating
extraordinary situations which lure us unwittingly into the realm of
her idiosyncratic cast of characters.

Drawing from a vast collection of figurines, knickknacks, toys, and
souvenirs, Porter makes photographs and sculptures featuring these
characters in unexpected combinations and circumstances. “For
Instance,” an eight-panel photograph, depicts a rally or political
protest of sorts, but with dissimilar characters — such as a Nazi bust,
a group of ceramic Maoist Chinese communists, a Mickey Mouse doll,
a choir boy candle — representing entirely dissimilar aims. Yet they
are united by the peculiar urgency of the situation.

Some of the characters are brought out of the photograph and into
three dimensions. Photographs paired with the actual object depict-
ed, though in different form, bend reality and reverse time. Tiny
figures on shelves perform enormous tasks, at once pathetic and
hilarious. With masterful simplicity and humor, Porter blends the real
with the representational in hypothetical yet believable narratives –
mini-dramas starring mass-produced, kitsch objects that innocently
elicit our compassion and our laughter.

Liliana Porter was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and lives in New
York. Recent solo exhibitions include the Centro Cultural Recoleta,
Buenos Aires; the Museo Castagnino, Rosario, Argentina; Palacio
Aguirre, Cartagena, Spain; and the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona. Her
work is in numerous museum collections including the Museum of
Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Philadelphia
Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of American Art; Museum of
Contemporary Art, San Diego; and major museums in Venezuela,
Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Norway, Poland,
Sweden, and Spain.