Liz Magor (born 1948) is a Canadian visual artist based in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

. She is well known for her sculptures that address themes of history, shelter and survival through objects that reference still life, domesticity and wildlife. She often re-purposes domestic objects such as blankets and is known for using mold making techniques.

Biography

Magor was born in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

in 1948. Magor studied at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

from 1966-1968, and

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

in New York from 1968-1970. Subsequently, she completed her diploma at the

Vancouver School of Art Emily Carr University of Art + Design (abbreviated as ECU) is a public art university located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The university's campus is located within the Great Northern Way Campus in Strathcona. The university is a co-e ...

in 1971. She had a career as a respected educator at the

Ontario College of Art and Design Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...

before moving to Vancouver to continue her teaching at the

Emily Carr University of Art and Design Emily Carr University of Art + Design (abbreviated as ECU) is a public art university located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The university's campus is located within the Great Northern Way Campus in Strathcona. The university is a co-e ...

where she continued to be major influence on a younger generation of artists. Alongside

Stan Douglas Stan Douglas (born October 11, 1960) is an artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Douglas' film and video installations, photography and work in television frequently touch on the history of literature, cinema and music, while examining t ...

, Brian Jungen, and

Jeff Wall Jeffrey Wall, Order of Canada, OC, Royal Society of Canada, RSA (born September 29, 1946) is a Canadian artist best known for his large-scale back-lit Cibachrome photographs and art history writing. Early in his career, he helped define the Van ...

, Magor's work and studio practice was featured in the Vancouver episode of season 8 of the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

broadcas
Art21: Art in the Twenty-First Century
Magor's internationally exhibited and produced work usually takes the form of

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, installation, or

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

. Major solo exhibitions of her work have been presented internationally at The Renaissance Society, Chicago;

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building designed primarily by Le Corbusier in the United States—he contributed to the design of the United Nations Secretariat Building—an ...

, Cambridge; The Modern and Contemporary Art Museum of Nice; Kunstverein in Hamburg;

Migros Museum of Contemporary Art The Migros Museum of Contemporary Art (German: Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst) is a museum for contemporary art in Zürich, Switzerland. The museum was founded in 1996 . It is the successor to the Halle für Internationale neue Kunst, which ...

, Zurich, among other venues. In Canada she has exhibited widely at prominent institutions such as the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...

, the

Winnipeg Art Gallery The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...

, and the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

. Alongside Ian Carr-Harris, she represented Canada at the XLI

Biennale Biennale (), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularis ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, in 1984, and she was invited to participate at

documenta 8 documenta 8 was the eighth edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition. It was held between 12 June and 20 September 1987 in Kassel, West Germany. The artistic director was Manfred Schneckenburger.documenta 8 Katalog: Ba ...

in Kassel, in 1987. Magor has been recognized with civic, national, and international awards. In 2001, awarded the

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

. In Vancouver, she was recognized with the sixth annual

Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts The Audain Prize for the Visual Arts (Audain Prize) is an annual award that recognizes a distinguished Canadian artist. Worth $100,000, it is one of Canada's most significant honours for the arts. The prize is supported by the Audain Foundation and ...

in 2009. In 2014, she was the recipient of the

Gershon Iskowitz Prize Gershon Iskowitz (1919 – January 26, 1988) was a Canadian artist of Jewish background originally from Poland. Iskowitz was a Holocaust survivors, Holocaust survivor of the Kielce Ghetto, who was liberated at Buchenwald concentration camp, Bu ...

, awarded by the

with a solo exhibition. In 2019, she was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France.

Art Practice

Liz Magor works in

, installation,

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

and

. Her sculptural work investigates the

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...

of ordinary or familiar objects, which she remakes and presents in new contexts. For example, Magor has created facsimiles of food items and their containers, as well as other objects such as driftwood, logs, tree stumps, and clothing. A studio- and object-oriented artist, Magor’s work emphasizes process and materiality, and highlights the difference between the real and the simulated. In previous work, Magor used mold-making and casting techniques to make replicas of coats, trays and cutlery (which she calls "serviceable objects") as receptacles for other materials (such as candies or cigarettes). These works reference the accumulation of discarded goods and vices that appeal to our common impulses. They also raise questions about the social and emotional life of objects. Magor’s more recent work involves the repurposing of used clothing and old wool blankets (other types of "serviceable objects"). In her article entitled ''Magor's Timeless Transitions'', Robin Laurence writes, "Art, Liz Magor says, is the place where our perceptions are opened and examined for prolonged periods of time. Much longer, she suggests, than in our day-to-day encounters with the visual world, where we tend to interpret given signs in fixed ways, and where our first impressions are usually consolidated by our second mpressions Magor's art refutes such consolidation: irresolution prevails and closure eludes us. Her sculptures consistently play reality against unreality, meaning against alternative meaning, initial appearance against later revelation." Magor's permanent or temporary public works have been installed in Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Regional District, and Toronto and the Toronto area. Magor is represented b
Susan Hobbs Gallery
an
Catriona Jeffries
in Canada
Andrew Kreps Gallery
in the United States, an
Marcelle Alix
in France. In her early career, she was represented by

Ydessa Hendeles Ydessa Hendeles is a German-born Canadian artist-curator and philanthropist. She is also the founding director of the Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto, Ontario. Hendeles is an adjunct professor with the Department of Art History at the ...

's The Ydessa Gallery in Toronto.

Collections

Liz Magor's work is found in public and private collections in Canada and internationally, such as the

, the

Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The gallery is housed in an award-winning building designed by architect Peter Cardew and o ...

, at

The University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...

, the

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it is ...

, and the

, in Canada; the

Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...

, in the United States; as well as the collections of

Centre national des arts plastiques The Centre national des arts plastiques (National Centre for Visual Arts, Cnap) is a French institution established in 1982 under the Ministry of Culture and Communication that promotes creation of visual arts. It provides assistance to artists and ...

, Frac Corse, and Frac Île-de-France in France.

Bibliography

Monographs and exhibition catalogues: * Byers, Dan; Øvstebo, Solveig; Heti, Sheila; Speed, Mitch (2019). ''BLOWOUT''. Cambridge, MA; Chicago, IL: Carpenter Center for the Arts and The Renaissance Society. . *Adler, Dan; Johnstone, Lesley; Magor, Liz; Munder, Heike; Steinbrügge, Bettina (2016). ''Habitude''. Montreal, QC; Zürich; Hamburg: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, and Kunstverein in Hamburg. . * * *Arnold, Grant; and Monk, Philip; et al. Liz Magor. Toronto/Vancouver: The Power Plant/Vancouver Art Gallery, 2002 *Tousley, Nancy; Hogg, Lucy; Shier, Reid (2000). ''Liz Magor''. Vancouver, BC; Toronto, ON: Contemporary Art Gallery and Art Gallery of York University.

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and ...

0-920751-77-6.

Biography

Art Practice

Collections

Bibliography

References

Further reading