Liz Magor Libros

In 2019, the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University co-organized an exhibition of a newly commissioned body of work by the Canadian artist Liz Magor. The accompanying publication, Liz Magor: BLOWOUT, is the artist's first US catalog in ten years, and it features thorough photographic documentation of the new work, commissioned texts by Sheila Heti and Mitch Speed, and a conversation between the artist and curators Solveig vsteb and Dan Byers. For more than four decades, Liz Magor's practice has quietly dramatized the relationships that develop among objects, and she describes this body of work as "a collection of tiny and intense narratives." Each written contribution responds in its own way to Magor's new installations, which feature altered stuffed toys, bits of paper, and rat skins--sculptural "agents," in the artist's words--suspended in transparent Mylar box forms, and thirty-two pairs of secondhand shoes, each displayed within its own box amidst elaborate embellishments.

Liz Magor (*1948) is a pivotal Canadian artist and the most influential sculptor of the past three decades. This publication offers an in-depth exploration of her sculptures and installations created over 40 years, highlighting the thematic and emotional breadth of her work. Magor's art addresses various contexts, from the mental and physical realms of retail consumerism to the intimate spaces of addiction and desire. Her practice is marked by a rigorous conceptual approach and a profound investigation of diverse materials, such as twigs, textiles, rubber, and polymerized gypsum. The book delves into the complex layers of Magor’s work, which intricately weaves together references to cultures of display, compulsion, and consumption, underscoring her status as one of the most compelling conceptual artists of her generation. It features an interview with Magor and contributions from Dan Adler, Heike Munder, Bettina Steinbrügge, Ian Carr Harris, Géraldine Gourbe, Trevor Mahovsky, Isabelle Pauwels, Chris Sharpe, and Corin Sworn. This monograph accompanies the retrospective exhibition organized by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, and Kunstverein in Hamburg, opening in Montréal in June 2016.