Appetites/Anxieties by Liz Lessner
Liz Lessner’s enact the places where culture and social norms influence the ways we navigate and perform desire. They range from figurative to abstract installation works that are augmented by the viewer’s performance. These performative installations imply the body or its placement and ask the viewer to physically interact with them. In this work the viewer becomes a graphic part of the sculpture while also having a unique and personal experience of it.
Lessner’s work stems from a framing of resonant gestures that ritualize and familiarize psychological narratives and personal memories. These objects consider social feedback loops, popular narratives of desire, as well as mythology and nostalgia and the fetishism that both imply. They explore negotiations of power and status, and authenticity and performance, through forms that unsettle and attract preconscious affinities and desires.
Liz Lessner has exhibited her sculptures in group and two person exhibitions in Oregon, Michigan, New York, and Mexico. She has shown her work at Collision Machine, Brooklyn Artist Gym, 3rd Ward, and A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence), the first cooperative for women artists in the United States. Highlights include the two-person show “Common China” at 3rd Ward, Brooklyn, and two group shows with Supporting Women Artists Project (SWAP) at Brooklyn Artists Gym and A.I.R. gallery.