Liz Magor is one of Canada’s most influential artists. Her practice focuses on the possibilities of sculpture as a narrative form. Attentive to the physicality of an object, she casts and organizes found material so that intense narratives of dependency and desire can emerge. At once sarcastic and sympathetic, Magor’s sculptures spark questions about our belief and emotional investment in the material world.
This solo exhibition at MOCA emphasizes the tensions in her work, playing rough against refined, flimsy against sturdy, fashionable against passé, and custom-made against mass-produced. Across the second floor will be varying moments of suspense: objects intercepting one another as they slip, tumble or fall from safety and grace.
Titled The Separation, Magor’s presentation of newly commissioned and recent works refers to changing values and shifting fates. Borrowing from the complexity of sculpture, the exhibition also invites the viewer to look and relook at their familiar surroundings.
About the Artist
Liz Magor was born in 1948 in Winnipeg, Canada, and studied at the Vancouver School of Art and at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Throughout her career Magor has also taught, both at the Ontario College of Art and Design and at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, contributing to her significant influence on younger generations of students and artists.
Magor’s work has been widely recognized. She represented Canada at the Venice Biennale (1984), participated in Documenta 8 (1987) and had a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1992). In 2001, Magor received the Governor General’s award. Since 2017, she has presented several notable solo exhibitions, mostly in Europe, including at The Modern and Contemporary Art Museum (Nice, France), Kunstverein (Hamburg, Germany), and the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich, Switzerland).
In 2015, Magor was the recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize and in 2021, France awarded her the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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