Liz Glynn

January 21 – March 23, 2012

Nichols Gallery
Curated by Ciara Ennis

When a labor shortage threatened to derail its miraculous economic engine (the capitalist workforce was virtually cut in half by the Berlin wall) West Germany imported thousands of Turkish gastarbeiter, guest-workers, during the 1960s and 70s. A very different commodity, however, was similarly imported in the 1860s and 70s: the treasure of Troy. Bookended by these two events Los Angeles-based artist Liz Glynn has created No Second Troy, an exhibition featuring installation, video, and photographic works that examine the ideas of fable and obsession, desire and displacement.

Liz Glynn’s No Second Troy includes video documentation of interventions staged at archaeological sites around Turkey and crudely made but preciously embellished artifacts based on the infamous Prium’s Treasure—jewels, goblets, vases, weapons and plates made from copper, silver and gold—excavated at Troy, by amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Fabricated from trash and re-cast in gold-plated silver and bronze, Glynn’s replicas allude to both the real artifacts as well as the copies commissioned by the Pergamon Museum in Berlin that, in another purloining, were confiscated by the Red Army in 1945. Other works in the series are based on the material culture of Turkish emigrants—foods, crockery, and other consumer goods purchased from local Berlin markets—referencing both the everyday life of Turkish emigrants and the copies of Turkish treasure regularly displayed in museums.

Glynn’s practice frequently uses ancient references to explore human agency and the potential for change in the present. This exhibition represents her first major attempt to link ancient contexts directly with contemporary material culture and the occasionally disjunctive nature of this relationship.

About the Artist

Liz Glynn received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2008 and a BA from Harvard College in 2003. Glynn creates large-scale installations and participatory performances using epic historical narratives to explore the potential for change in the present tense. She has participated in numerous solo exhibitions including: Loving You is Like _ _ _ _ _ _ _ the Dead, MOCA: Engagement Party at MOCA in Los Angeles, CA (2011); Alexandria and Other Losses at the Los Angeles Public Library in Los Angeles, CA (2011); III, produced by Redling Fine Arts in Los Angeles, CA (2010); Out of the Forest & Into the Light at Machine Project & the LA Opera Ring Cycle Festival in Los Angeles, CA (2010); California Surrogates for the Getty at Anthony Greaney in Boston, MA (2010); and The 24 Hour Roman Reconstruction Project at Arthouse at the Jones Center in Austin, TX (2009) and at Machine Project in Los Angeles, CA (2008). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including: Temporary Structures: Performing Architecture in Contemporary Art at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA (2011); On Forgery: Is One Thing Better Than Another? at LA><ART in Los Angeles, CA (2011); No Swan So Fine at Michael Benevento in Los Angeles, CA (2011); 7 Sculptors at Brennan & Griffin in New York, NY (2011); Sculpture at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, NY (2011); The shortest distance between 2 points is often intolerable at Brand New Gallery in Milan, Italy (2011); Let Them Eat LACMA at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, CA (2010); The Elysian Park Museum of Art at LACE in Los Angeles, CA (2010); Projects and Assignments at Saprophyt in Vienna, Austria (2010); The Generational: Younger than Jesus at the New Museum in New York, NY (2009); and Bellwether at Southern Exposure in San Francisco, CA (2009). She will also be participating in the Getty Museum’s Pacific Standard Time Performance Art and Public Art Festival in 2012. Glynn was awarded the California Community Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2010, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Associate Artist Fellowship in 2007 and the Alfred Alcaly Prize in 2004. Reviews of her work have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Art Lies, Domus, Archaeology Magazine, and artforum.com. Liz Glynn currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Related Events

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 21, 2 – 5 pm, Nichols Gallery, Pitzer College

Artist Walkthrough: Saturday, January 21 at 2:30 pm, Nichols Gallery, Pitzer College

Artist Lecture: Monday, February 20 at 9 am, Nichols Gallery, Pitzer College

Panel Discussion: Tuesday, March 27 at 4:00 pm in the Broad Performance Space, Broad Center, Pitzer College with artist Liz Glynn, Michelle Berenfeld, professor of classics at Pitzer College and writer Andrew Berardini.