To what extent is the installation process of an artwork, its codes, rules, economy and politics, a part of the work's meaning? What privileges and types of information become available during the process of "handling" artworks? And how does exposing the installation process and protocols of an art exhibit affect the resulting display?
On May 11 Luxembourg + Co., New York, will open Art Handling: An Installation Play by Liz Magic Laser, an exhibition conceived as a theatre piece where the gallery is transformed to a stage, and a group of artworks and art handlers become its cast and crew respectively. Looking at the crucial role of art handling in the process of determining how art is experienced and understood, in this project Lis Magic Laser invites visitors to attend the installation process of an exhibition in real time, while a group of technicians (who are also trained art performers) unpack, examine, and position a display of sculptures, paintings and video works. As the installation process unfolds, however, the handlers begin to share stories about their work, invite viewers to engage in their tasks, and activate some of the pieces in the show in unusual ways - including historical sculptures by Lygia Clark, Dino De Dominicis, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as new pieces by Liz Magic Laser and Esperanza Mayobre.
The installation process thus becomes the exhibition's opening event; a day long performance that begins with the arrival of the works to the gallery just before noon, and ends with a series of unexpected performances towards the evening, as the installation comes to a finish and transforms into an opening event (6-8pm).
But Art Handling does not end on the eve of its opening. In the days following the event, the exhibition takes on a new identity in the gallery, now as a site where artworks and props coexist both as documents and artworks: sculptures, crates, drills, measuring tapes, a playbill brochure, and a CCTV recording of the installation day, all fuse into an exhibition where process and product are one and the same.
The exhibition Art Handling: An Installation Play extends Liz Magic Laser's ongoing interest in the relationship between bodily gestures and the social frameworks that condition them - from movie theatres, through banks, newsrooms, and in this case a gallery space - undermining the distinctions between audience, actors, and professionals from various disciplines, including art.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981) is a New York native, Brooklyn-based, multidisciplinary artist. Laser primarily works in multimedia video and performance, although her practice extends also to sculpture and installation, intervening on public spaces - such as movie theatres, banks, and newsrooms - often involving collaborations with her audience, actors, political strategists, and even surgeons.
Influenced in part by Bertolt Brecht's concept of epic theatre and Augusto Boal's theatre of the oppressed, Laser has integrated the construction of identities to her performances. To explore this further, Laser has recently drawn from the growing influence and phenomenon of reality television, studying internet meme culture, soap operas and even commercials - all of which have prompted and influenced corporate and political movements. This has led her to include children in her works, looking at how self-perception is influenced by the media.
Laser has had solo presentations and screenings of her work STUK, Leuven (2024); Tate Modern, London (2023); Pioneer Works, New York (2023); CAC Brétigny, (2017); Jupiter Artland Foundation, Edinburgh (2017); Kunstverein, Göttingen, (2016); Mercer Union, Toronto (2015); Wilfred Lentz, Rotterdam, (2015); Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2015); Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2013); the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, (2013); and Mälmo Konsthall, Mälmo (2012). Her work was also included in exhibition at Image & Sound the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2019); Metro Pictures, New York (2018); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2017); the Swiss Institute (2016); the Whitney Museum of American Art (2015); Lisson Gallery, London (2013); and the Performa 11 Biennial, New York (2011).