Liliana Porter
Liliana Porter was born in 1941 in Buenos Aires
She currently lives and works in New York
One of the most cited Argentinean artists in contemporary culture, Liliana Porter has long questioned the boundary between reality and its representation. She is a master at distilling life and art to simple profundities through humorous juxtapositions of incongruous objects. Over the years, Porter has amassed a prodigious and eccentric collection of figurines, knickknacks, toys, and souvenirs from her global travels. These kitschy objects appear regularly in her work, inviting political, philosophical, and existential interpretation through their arrangement in unexpected situations. Each tchotchke represents a different era and cultural/historical narrative. Porter delights in manipulating time, history and reality by combining them as though in dialogue in a timeless white space. In 1964 Liliana Porter moved to New York, where she has lived and worked since. The same year, she founded The New York Graphic Workshop with two fellow artists: Luis Camnitzer and José Guillermo Castillo, with the goal of redefining the practice of printmaking.
Since an early solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, in 1973, she has exhibited widely throughout Europe, South America and the United States, with important solo retrospectives at the Museo Tamayo De Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2008) and ARTIUM Vitoria, Spain (2017). She was also part of the main exhibition, Viva Arte Viva, at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).
Her work is in numerous public and private collections in Latin America, Europe and the United States, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington DC; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, and the Tate Modern, London.
Professor at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY) from 1991 to 2007, Liliana Porter has been the recipient of significant prizes and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980, three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships (1999, 1996, 1985), the Mid Atlantic/NEA Regional Fellowship (1994) and seven PSC-CUNY research awards (from 1994 to 2004).
Several monographs of her work have been published and the scholarly work, Liliana Porter and the Art of Simulation (Florencia Bazzano-Nelson, Ashgate Press) was published in 2008.
The Man with an Axe and Other Brief Situations – Exhibition view, Venice Biennale, 2017
The Man with an Axe and Other Brief Situations – Detail, Venice Biennale, 2017
The Man with an Axe and Other Brief Situations – Detail, Venice Biennale, 2017
The Man with an Axe and Other Brief Situations – Detail, Venice Biennale, 2017
The Man with an Axe and Other Brief Situations, 2017 – Exhibition view, PAMM, Miami, 2018
The Man with an Axe and Other Brief Situations, 2017 – Exhibition view, PAMM, Miami, 2018
Other Situations, 2020 - Detail, The National Museum of Ceramics Princessehof, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
Other Situations, 2020 - Exhibition view, The National Museum of Ceramics Princessehof, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
To Clean Up, 2012 – Exhibition view, Galleria Continua, Boissy-le-Châtel, France, 2012
Other Situations, 2017-2018 - Exhibition View, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia
Other Situations, 2018 - Exhibition View, El Museo Del Barrio, New York
Untitled (The Weaver), 2018 - Installation, variable dimensions
Other Situations, 2018 - Exhibition View, El Museo Del Barrio, New York
Other Situations, 2018 - Exhibition View, El Museo Del Barrio, New York
The Riddle and Other Circumstances, 2019 - Exhibition view, mor charpentier
Untitled (with Gardener), 2019 - Detail of the installation
The Riddle and Other Circumstances, 2019 - Exhibition view, mor charpentier
The Riddle and Other Circumstances, 2019 - Exhibition view, mor charpentier
The Painter, 2019 -Detail of the installation
Man Painting a Chair, 2019 - Painted chair and figurine
Linea de Tiempo - Exhibition view, Museo Tamayo, Mexico, 2009
Exhibition view, Art Omi, Ghent, New York, 2018
Man with Pickaxe II, 2018 - Detail of the installation
Situations with Lost Objects, 2011 - Acrylic and assemblage on canvas (detail)
Face à la mer - Paserelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest, France, 2020
Three of Them with White Sailboat, 2019 - Acrylic and assemblage on canvas
Liliana Porter & Marcel Broodthaers, Museum as Hub : The incongrus image - Exhibition view, New Museum, 2011
Liliana Porter & Marcel Broodthaers, Museum as Hub : The incongrus image - Exhibition view, New Museum, 2011
Dialogue (with Penguin), 1999 - Cibachrome
Them, 2018 - Detail of the installation, Art Omi, Ghent, New York, 2018
Them, 2018 - Detail of the installation, Art Omi, Ghent, New York, 2018
Dialogues and disobediences - Exhibition View, ARTIUM, Vitoria, Spain, 2017
Dialogues and disobediences - Exhibition View, ARTIUM, Vitoria, Spain, 2017
Breaking News, 2016 -Digital video, Exhibition View, El Museo Del Barrio, New York, 2018
Them, 2019 - Theater performance, The Kitchen, New York
Them, 2019 - Theater performance, The Kitchen, New York
Other Situations, 2017-2018 - Exhibition View, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia
Untitled (Self Portrait with Square II), 1973 Modern gelatin silver print made from the original 1973 film negative in 2014
Dialogues and disobediences - Exhibition View, ARTIUM, Vitoria, Spain, 2017
Wrinkle Environment Installation I, 1969-2009 - Exhibition view, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2012
Wrinkle Environment I, 1969 - Wrinkled offset paper on wall, Exhibition View Museum of Fine Arts, Caracas, 1969
Wrinkle Environment I, 1969 - Wrinkled offset paper on wall, Exhibition View Museum of Fine Arts, Caracas, 1969
Untitled (Porter and Camnitzer with Drawing), 1973 - Modern gelatin silver print, 2012
Untitled (Hands and Triangle), 1973 - Modern gelatin silver print, 2012
Untitled (Circle Mural) I, 1973-74 - Vintage laminated gelatin silver print and graphite on wall
Liliana Porter installing Untitled (Circle Mural) I, c.1973
Geometric Shapes with Drawings, 1973 - Modern gelatin silver print, 2012
Untitled (Nails), 1973 - Site specific installation, Exhibition view, MoMA, New York, 1973
Untitled (Nails), 1973 - Site specific installation with nails, string and pencil (detail)