• Liliana Porter
    Forced Labor, 2008
    wooden base, metal figurine
    2 1/2 x 5 x 2 inches

Living (in) Animate

December 12, 2008—January 17, 2009


Established artist Liliana Porter and emerging Chicago-based photographer Liza Berkoff work’s both deal with aspects of the philosophical and the absurd. Both artists investigate the secret life of inanimate objects and those moments in life that make us question what is real. Their works both challenge and lure us into a world of make believe that questions are understanding of the absolute and artificial. Liliana Porter’s work playfully rebel’s against tradition, disrupts time and challenges our notions of reality. Using a wide range of media, Porter brings together the ridiculous with logical, creating bizarre situations that lure us unwittingly into the world of her idiosyncratic cast of characters. Drawing from an eclectic collection of figurines, knickknacks, toys, and souvenirs, Porter features these characters in unforeseen combinations and circumstances. The unique situations she invents, where distinct events occur simultaneously, or dissimilar protagonists interact, wittily invite political, philosophical, and existential interpretation.

Chicago photographer Liza Berkoff, in her first exhibition at the Carrie Secrist Gallery will be exhibiting photographs that show her passion and interest in the uncanny. Berkoff is interested in the peculiarity and the uniqueness of place and the incongruity that can occur in everyday life. Berkoff says about her work, “I am inspired by the way people manipulate their surroundings, I see this in the display case of a butcher shop, the sparse geometry of a construction site or a scrap of Astroturf left behind in a warehouse”. In Berkoff’s work the strange is examined; whether it is a decapitated Barbie found on the city streets or someone’s figurines lined up on Western Avenue as if ready to perform a play. Most of us are interested in those niches in life that make us take a second glance, that cause us to look up from our book, that make us question what we know; it is these instances that shine in Liza Berkoff’s photography.

Images

  • Liliana Porter
    To See Red, 2009
    Acrylic and metal figurine (white suit)
    14 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    Double Disguise, 2008
    Collage and pencil drawing on paper
    15 x 10 3/4 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    Polaroid, 2001
    Mixed media
    32 x 23 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    Green Hat, 2007
    Duraflex mounted with UV Plexiglas
    19 x 14 3/4 inches
    Edition of five

  • Liliana Porter
    Forced Labor: weaver (blue III), 2008
    Wooden shelf, blue fabric, small base & figurine
    13 x 43 1/2 x 11 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    Painter (with white hat), 2009
    Wooden base, metal figurine, pain on wall
    3 x 3 x 2 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    Blue with Them, 2005
    Duraflex mounted & laminated
    40 x 31 inches

  • Liliana Porter
    Dog, 2004
    Cibachrome
    12 x 12 x 1 inches

  • Liza Berkoff
    AISLE OF THE DOLLS, 2008
    C-print
    28 x 42 inches

  • Liza Berkoff
    Curbside, 2006
    C-print
    28 x 42 Inches

  • Liza Berkoff
    Scalped, 2008
    C-print
    28 x 42 inches

  • Liza Berkoff
    Off Color, 2008
    C-print
    28 x 42 inches

  • Liza Berkoff
    Horses on 18th, 2008
    C-print
    28 x 42 inches