Liz Larner

Public Art Fund presents
Liz Larner
2001

At Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park
Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, New York

http://www.publicartfund.org

November 29, 2006 – May 1, 2007

2001 is a tour-de-force sculpture by Liz Larner, a Los Angeles-based artist best known for her engaging investigations into the physicality of objects in space. Presented at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, near the southeast entrance to the park, 2001 is Larner’s virtuoso reinterpretation of the two quintessential geometric forms of modernist sculpture – the sphere and the cube. It represents six different points of progression between these two shapes, all superimposed on one common center point to create a multifaceted three-dimensional object.

Twelve feet high, deep and wide, and painted in green and purple iridescent urethane, 2001 is an enigmatic shape-shifter; its contour and color change with the viewer’s angle and the overall light conditions so that it seems to be both at rest and undergoing metamorphosis. Made using a computer animation program and constructed of industrial materials – stainless steel, fiberglass and automotive paint – 2001 is the largest and most technically sophisticated example of the artist’s ongoing examination of the dynamic potential of static objects. At once sci-fi futuristic and gemlike, giant yet indeterminate, Larner’s sleek experiment with simultaneity invites the viewer in, and around, for a closer look. The title, perhaps a nod to the sculpture’s mysterious and almost meteoritic nature, is also the year it was made.

Since the mid-1980s, Larner has been renowned for her inventive explorations of the fundamental elements of modern and contemporary sculpture: volume, mass, line, density and substance. Her idiosyncratic formalism employs unexpected hues and a wide range of unconventional materials. Her works address the relationship that exists between an object and a person, which she has described as being much more than purely visual: “When you’re with something…there’s almost a bodily tracking system, like the way you can tell how far away something is. Maybe it’s like heat or sound.”

Born in Sacramento in 1960, Liz Larner lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a BFA from California Institute of Arts, Valencia (1985). Her work has been featured in recent exhibitions at Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2005); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001); Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (1997); and in “Two or Three or Something,” a two-person exhibition with Maria Lassnig at Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2006). She has participated in many group exhibitions including the 1989 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1992); 2006 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She is the recipient of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucelia Artist Award (2002) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1999).

LOCATION AND DIRECTIONS
2001 is on view at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue, at the entrance to Central Park. Subways: N, R to Fifth Avenue; 4, 5, 6 to 59th St/Lexington Ave. The work is free to the public and is on view daily.

DORIS C. FREEDMAN PLAZA is named for the founder of the Public Art Fund and has been the site of more than 40 artist projects and commissions, featuring works by both internationally known and emerging artists including Sarah Sze, Wim Delvoye, Richard Deacon, Paul McCarthy, Juan Muñoz, Keith Edmier, Mark Handforth and Chinatsu Ban.

Public Art Fund is New York’s leading presenter of artists’ projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in public spaces. For almost 30 years, the Public Art Fund has been committed to working with emerging and established artists to produce innovative exhibitions of contemporary art throughout New York City. By bringing artworks outside the traditional context of museums and galleries, the Public Art Fund provides a unique platform for an unparalleled public encounter with the art of our time.

Recent and current critically acclaimed exhibitions and presentations by Public Art Fund include Nina Katchadourian’s Office Semaphore at Chase Manhattan Plaza (on view November 16, 2006 – January 14, 2007); Sarah Morris’s Robert Towne at Lever House (on view through December 3, 2006); Alexander Calder in New York at City Hall Park (on view through March 18, 2007); Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center (2006); Sarah Sze’s Corner Plot at Doris C. Freedman Plaza (2006); and Nancy Rubins’s Big Pleasure Point at Lincoln Center (2006).

Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

This exhibition is made possible through the cooperation of the City of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor; Patricia E. Harris, First Deputy Mayor; and Department of Parks & Recreation, Adrian Benepe, Commissioner.

Special thanks to Regen Projects, Los Angeles.


Contact:
Anne Wehr or Jane Koh
Public Art Fund
press@publicartfund.org