On the Possibility of Salvage

source: madeinla2012org

Liz Glynn’s (b. 1981 Boston) handmade sculptural objects, installations for collaborative participatory performances, and architectonic monuments crafted with minimal means are positioned at the intersection of contemporary art’s most challenging operations: site-specificity, institutional critique, performativity, and public engagement. Inspired by the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the work on view here references colonial-era Egyptian trading passages as well as contemporary routes for trafficking both art objects and daily staples. Notions of passage, necessity versus fantasy, survival, creation, culture, and economy all come into play. The objects in the cabinets in Glynn’s installation are copies of items reportedly smuggled across the Egyptian border into Gaza. Anyone is free to open the drawers, remove the objects, and carry them around. The large wooden tunnel element references the Grand Gallery in Khufu’s pyramid, which was once filled with all the items the pharaoh would need in the afterlife. Some of these objects are strikingly similar to those smuggled across the border. The wooden tunnel also references the tunnel shafts used for smuggling.
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source: spacesgalleryorg

A lot of the work I do involves developing a structure for engagement with a dense historical structure through hands-on interaction and embodiement. I operate between modes of architect (shifting physical scale so that a vast world becomes apprehesible and malleable), and scientist (setting up a set of limit conditions and allowing the experiment to unfold without intervening.) Some examples: The 24 Hour Roman Reconstruction Project, 65 | 77 | 03 | – (a two night performance staging the NYC blackouts from the togetherness of the cold war to the looting of the 70s), and Basement Wagner. Each of these projects reconstructs an epic narrative with “poor” materials, and allows the audience to navigate through the space and situation through their own lived experience and conversations with fellow participants.
Biography

Liz Glynn employs objects and actions to consider the ambition of empire, the pleasure of ruin, and the possibility of a new way forward. Her practice seeks to embody dynamic cycles of growth and decay by creating works which evidence process, encourage participation, and incite future action.

Her work has been exhibited across the United States at venues including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Machine Project, Acuna-Hansen Gallery, the REDCAT Lounge, John Connolly Presents (NYC), and most recently in The Generational: Younger than Jesus at the New Museum in New York City. Reviews of her work have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Art Lies, among others. She has attended residencies at O’Artoteca in Milan, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. She received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts, and her BA from Harvard College.