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the opening was great, thanks.
December 13, 2008
a huge thank you to everyone who made it out to the opening last night. it was so great to share it with you. and for those who did not make it to the opening, the show will be hanging until january 17th, 2009. i will share pictures soon. in the meantime come to see the show, it is much better in person. i am very excited about this show. and to share my first show with and meet the fantastically sweet and wonderful liliana porter was an honor.

here is the email that went out from the gallery(pics included this time).
Living (In) Animate
December 12 - January 17, 2009
Liliana Porter- New Work / Liza Berkoff- New Photography
Project Room- Richard Hull- New Drawings




carrie secrist gallery
835 W Washington Blvd
Chicago IL 60607
312.491.0917
carrie secrist gallery
tues-fri 10:30am-6pm
sat 11am-5pm

Carrie Secrist Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition-- Living (In)Animate-- which pairs the aesthetics of internationally renouned Argentina born artist Liliana Porter and emerging Chicago based photographer Liza Berkoff. The common denominator of this curatorial pairing is how both artists equally address a sense of philosophical intensity and playfull whimsey. In their practice, both artists investigate the secret life of inanimate objects and those moments in life that make us question what is real. Their works individually challenge and lure us into a world of childhood fantasy that questions our understanding of the absolute and artificial.

Liliana Porter's work playfully rebel's against tradition, disrupts time and challenges our notion of reality. Using a wide range of media, Porter brings together the ridiculous with the logical, creating bizarre situations that seduce us unwittingly into the world of her idiosyncratic set of characters. Drawing from an eclectic collection of figurines, knickknacks, toys and souvenirs, Porter features these characters in unforeseen combinations and circumstances. The unique situations she invents, where distinct events occur simultaneously, or dissimilar protagonists interact, wittily invite political, philosophical, and existential interpretation. In Porter's eerie installations we, the viewer, see ourselves in the cast of characters that she has so sharply created.

Liza Berkoff, in her first exhibition at the Carrie Secrist Gallery will be exhibiting photographs that display her passion and interest in the uncanny. Berkoff is interested in the peculiarity and the uniqueness of place and the incongruity that can occur in everyday life. Berkoff says about her work, "I am inspired by the way people manipulate their surroundings, I see this in the display case of a butcher shop, the sparse geometry of a construction site or a scrap of Astroturf left behind in a warehouse". In Berkoff's work the strange is examined, whether it is a decapitated Barbie found on the city streets or someone's figurine's lined up on the sidewalk as if ready to perform a play. Most of us are interested in those niches in life that make us take a second glance, that cause us to look up from our newspaper, that make us question what we know, it is these moment's that shine in Liza Berkoff's photography.

In the gallery's Project Room, established Chicago artist Richard Hull presents a new series of charcoal drawings that examine an abstract relationship between organic and architectural forms. His signature layered mark making (both structured and sinewy)seem to morph from the one to the other in the series, finally creating a symphony of complex and striking imagery.

Porter has shown internationally, including exhibitions at the Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires; the Museo Castagnino, Rosario, Argentina; Palacio Aguirre, Cartagena, Spain; and the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona. Her work is in numerous public and private collections in Latin America, Europe and the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of American Art; Danos-Latinoamerica Collection, Zurich; and Tate Modern, London.

Liza Berkoff studied at Bard College with photographer Larry Fink and is a graduate of Columbia College in Chicago, IL. She is a Curator's Choice Selected Artist from Around the Coyote in Chicago and has exhibited widely in Chicago art organizations.

Richard Hull has exhibited widely nationally and is in numerous public exhibitions including The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; The Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, New York, NY; and The Smithsonian, Washington D.C.

Richard Hull


thanks again for all of your support.
xo.
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