Liz Larner

Liz Larner (born 1960) is an American installation artist and sculptor living and working in Los Angeles.

Early life and education Larner was born in Sacramento, California in 1960. In 1985, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of Arts in Valencia, California, where she studied with John Baldessari.

Work Larner's work is regarded to have much in common with the late 1960s and early 1970s sculptures of Eva Hesse and Jackie Winsor.

She discovered the materials of ceramic for her artistic practice in the late 1990s.

Larner's sculptures are approachable in human scale and idiosyncratic vision that favors personal narrative over minimal austerity.

In her early work, Larner examined issues of transformation and decay in a series of petri dish cultures that she also photographed. Used to Do the Job (1987) consists of two rough-hewn cubes stacked on top of each other; the bottom one is made of solid lead, the top one of almost solid wax and paraffin - suspended within are all the ingredients needed to make a time bomb. named for the year it was made, Larner mingled a cube and a sphere so that the object appears to be in perpetual motion. Its surface, iridescent urethane paint, is similar to automotive finishes.

In 2013, the Nasher Sculpture Center revealed the plans for a newly commissioned sculpture by Larner for The University of Texas at Dallas. For her commission, Larner proposed X, a mirror-polished stainless steel sculpture to be placed in the courtyard of the new Edith O'Donnell Arts and Technology Building (ATEC).

Exhibitions Larner's work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. Survey exhibitions of her work have been held at the Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2006); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001); the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (1998); and the Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (1997). Her work was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and "Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s" which ran from January 26, to April 26, 1992, at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Organized by the Public Art Fund, Larner's sculpture 2001 was installed at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza near the southeast entrance to Central Park in 2006.

In 2013, Liz Larner, created two versions of a sculpture called, "X" for the Edith O'Donnell Arts and Technology Building in Texas.

In 2016, the Aspen Art Museum (AAM) hosted a solo show of Larner's work, surveying her ceramic work from since 2011.

In May 2019, Regen Projects hosted Larner's solo exhibition, "As Below, So Above."

Larner is represented by Regen Projects in Los Angeles and the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York City.

Collections Larner's work is in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC, among others.

Liz Larner has a collection in DESTE Foundation, which is located in Athens, Greece.

Recognition In 1999 Larner won a Guggenheim Fellowship.

In 2005, Liz Larner received the Pacific Design Center starts of design award.