ABOUT EXHIBITION : A Question of Scale
A Question of Scale features a selection of the artist's recent assemblages that showcase Porter's visual exploration of time, space and the limits of representation. By mismatching the scale of her chosen objects and engaging human-like figurines in impossible tasks, she sheds light on the human condition. Moreover, the random groupings of objects and figurines in a decontextualized white pictorial space invite the viewer to question their roles and identities, and our own.

ABOUT ARTISTS : Liliana Porter
Liliana Porter first studied art at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano in Buenos Aires, where she enrolled at the age of twelve. Five years later, she moved to Mexico City, where she entered the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) and studied printmaking with Guillermo Silva Santamaría and Mathias Goeritz. She subsequently studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. In 1964, on her way to Paris, Porter visited New York. Drawn to the opportunities and museums in the city, she postponed her trip to Europe and moved permanently to New York. In 1965, she co-founded The New York Graphic Workshop (NYGW) with artists Luis Camnitzer and José Guillermo Castillo, producing prints while redefining conventional models for making and distributing art.
Porter’s work often places carefully chosen small figurines and other objects in monochromatic empty backgrounds, addressing larger philosophical questions and emotional states. Alongside printmaking, she has also worked extensively in the media of photography and video and has created works on canvas, drawings, collages, and installations. She writes, “Many of these pieces depict a cast of characters that are inanimate objects, toys and figurines that I find in flea markets, antique stores, and other odd places. The objects have a double existence. On the one hand they are mere appearance, insubstantial ornaments, but, at the same time, have a gaze that can be animated by the viewer, who, through it, can project the inclination to endow things with an interiority and identity. These ‘theatrical vignettes’ are constructed as visual comments that speak of the human condition. I am interested in the simultaneity of humor and distress, banality and the possibility of meaning.”
In 1973, Porter had a solo show in the Projects Room at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. The Bronx Museum of the Arts held a retrospective exhibition of her work in 1991, and she has had solo exhibitions at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, the Phoenix Art Museum, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), and many other institutions throughout Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Porter was a professor at Queens College, City University of New York from 1991 to 2007.
Porter has been shown in numerous selected exhibitions, including Fragments of the Journey 1968-1991, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA and Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, USA (1992); Liliana Porter: Drum Solo, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA (2019); Liliana Porter: Fotografia y Ficción,Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2003); Fictions and Other Realities, Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design Gallery, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (two-person collaboration between Liliana Porter and Ana Tiscornia) (2005); El hombre con el hacha y otras situaciones breves, Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ), Guadalajara, Mexico and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Argentina (2013); Liliana Porter: Other Situations, El Museo del Barrio, New York City, New York, USA (2019); Selection of Works: 1968-1990, Museo Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Montevideo, Uruguay (1990);Liliana Porter – Selección de obra temprana y una reflexión desde el presente, Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales (MNAV), Montevideo, Uruguay (2015); Untitled (shadows) 1969-2014, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), Massachusetts, USA (2014); and Liliana Porter: Man with The Axe (Reconstruction of the original installation at the 57th Biennale di Venezia), Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Florida, USA (2018).
Porter’s work is included in many major collections including the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, USA; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, New York, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, USA; Tate Modern, London, England, UK; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York, USA.