Exhibition Information

Mine
2009

Handle (Poignée)
2018

Handle (Poignée)
2018

Handle (Poignée)
2018 Single-channel HD video

			Various Small Fires is pleased to present Liz Magic Laser’s first solo exhibition in Asia. As a traveling presentation from Laser’s most recent exhibition at VSF Los Angeles, this debut presentation in Seoul introduces both the artist’s earlier work Mine (2009) and latest institutional project Handle / Poignée (2018), which was commissioned by Centre Pompidou for MOVE Festival in Paris. The exhibition examines the techno-utopian logic of the scientifically managed self and the sociality that hyper-productivity forges.
 
Presented through the window, the video Mine displays assiduous robotic hands delving, pinching, snipping, and suturing through the contents of her purse: identity cards, dollar bills and makeup. Upon witnessing a friend’s distress over a stolen purse, Laser equated the incident as a loss of identity and began exploring concerns associated with personal identity and surveillance in modern society. Laser worked with a professional surgeon to direct the da Vinci Surgical System robot to perform a series of surgical maneuvers on her purse. The invasive procedures both expose and destroy her personal belongings, leaving a disorganized pile that recalls an abstract expressionist assemblage. Serving as a self-portrait that reduces individual identity to its paraphernalia, the jumble of destroyed items exhibits the invasion of privacy and personal autonomy.
 
Handle / Poignée is a performance and video installation imagining a consulting firm for analyzing and rehabilitating relations between liberals and conservatives. The interactive piece offers a personality test and treatment center where the public learns therapeutic movement for their political-personality type. Laser’s “Movement Consultants” guide viewers through therapeutic choreographies developed to empower four archetypes: the disciplinary parent, the nurturing parent, the rebellious child, and the obedient child, loosely drawn from George Lakoff’s book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (1996). The consultants inhabit a colorful Venn diagram stage that symbolizes the overlapping spheres of home, work, and politics in Laser’s political cosmology. This piece is informed by the corporate consulting firm Insights Discovery, which offers a Jungian personality test to categorize workers into four psychometric “color energies” that facilitate seamless communication for an efficient workplace. The choreographies were developed with dancers and movement therapists specialized in Body-Mind Centering and shamanic dance practices. Laser’s somatic diagnostics refer to specific political moments such as Trump and Macron’s prolonged handshake (Paris, 2018). The live interactive iteration of Handle / Poignée was staged daily in the lobby of the Centre Pompidou, where museum-goers took Laser’s “personality test” and participated in movement therapy treatments.
 
Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981, New York) is a multimedia video and performance based artist from New York City. Her work intervenes in semi-public spaces such as bank vestibules, movie theaters and newsrooms, involving collaborations with actors, surgeons, political strategists and motorcycle gang members. Her recent work explores the efficacy of new age techniques and psychological methods active in both corporate culture and political movements. Laser’s work has been shown at venues such as Kunsthalle Baden- Baden (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); Metro Pictures, New York (2018) Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2017); the Swiss Institute (2016); the Whitney Museum of American Art (2015); Nam June Paik Art Center, South Korea (2014); Lisson Gallery, London (2013); Performa 11 Biennial, New York (2011); and MoMA PS1, New York (2010). She has had solo exhibitions at CAC Brétigny, France (2017); Jupiter Artland Foundation, Scotland (2017); Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany (2016); Mercer Union, Toronto (2015); Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2015); Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2013) the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (2013); and Mälmo Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden (2012) among other places. The artist’s work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Liz Magic Laser lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
 
This is the artist’s fourth exhibition with Various Small Fires.