Mouse on Cloth
Liz Magor
Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1948
Lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia
2008
Polymerized gypsum, 1/2
Collection of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
Gift of the artist
D 16 65 TM 1
Liz Magor's practice combines a high degree of conceptual and methodical rigour with an in-depth investigation of materials. Mouse on Cloth is both fascinating and repulsive. This sculpture mare out of polymerized gypsum reproduces various objects (dead mouse, cigarette butts, tray) rendered with great concern for accuracy. The work is particularly representative of certain recurring themes, such as death and revolution. For the artist, presence/absence is a problem that the mind has to negotiate: "When bodies fail we call it death. When materials fail we call it corrosion or deflation or disintegration. Materials and intentions go through the equivalent of a life cycle - starting from nothing, developing into a very full something, failing, and then fading into memory. The studio is a good place to see death as a change of state." (Liz Magor, MACM, 2016, p. 22)
Mouse on Cloth
Liz Magor
Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1948
Lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia
2008
Polymerized gypsum, 1/2
Collection of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
Gift of the artist
D 16 65 TM 1
Liz Magor's practice combines a high degree of conceptual and methodical rigour with an in-depth investigation of materials. Mouse on Cloth is both fascinating and repulsive. This sculpture mare out of polymerized gypsum reproduces various objects (dead mouse, cigarette butts, tray) rendered with great concern for accuracy. The work is particularly representative of certain recurring themes, such as death and revolution. For the artist, presence/absence is a problem that the mind has to negotiate: "When bodies fail we call it death. When materials fail we call it corrosion or deflation or disintegration. Materials and intentions go through the equivalent of a life cycle - starting from nothing, developing into a very full something, failing, and then fading into memory. The studio is a good place to see death as a change of state." (Liz Magor, MACM, 2016, p. 22)