Celebrating the Lucelia Artist Award, 2001 – 2006
Liz Larner, Bird in Space, 1989, nylon cord, silk thread, stainless steel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, © 1989, Liz Larner, Gift of Susan and Leonard Nimoy and museum purchase in part through the Gene Davis Memorial Fund
The Lucelia Artist Award, established in 2001, has been an important new initiative at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The award annually recognizes an exceptional American artist younger than 50. The recipient is selected by a distinguished panel of jurors who nominate artists whose work they consider emblematic of this period in contemporary art.
Description
Each of the previous winners—Matthew Coolidge, director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (2006); Andrea Zittel (2005); Kara Walker (2004); Rirkrit Tiravanija (2003); Liz Larner (2002); and Jorge Pardo (2001)—are represented in the exhibition. Sidra Stich, the former executive director of the Lucelia Artist Award and director of "art·SITES," a series of contemporary art, architecture and design handbooks, is the guest curator of the exhibition. The 2007 winner of the Lucelia Artist Award, Jessica Stockholder, was announced in conjunction with the opening of this exhibition.
Visiting Information
Artists
Larner's sculptural work uses the formal roots of modernism to question traditional notions of space and volume. In her early work, Larner examined issues of transformation and decay in a series of petri dish cultures that she also photographed.
