Reading Rämistrasse #95: Silvan Koller on Liz Larner at Kunsthalle Zürich

[Kunsthalle Zürich disclaimer: Silvan Koller is writing about our own exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich]

A horizon of a thousand feelings is staged in a white cube. The surface and depth of happiness and suffering in life are here. The cycle of images could be the stations of the cross – for any human life. Imagine you are shopping in a store of life souvenirs. Liz Larner offers a way to indulge in abstractionism without any side effects. It’s a fun pill, filled with enlightenment. Larner gives us the OK to enjoy feeling life.

On the upper floor of the exhibition, ceramics hanging next to each other frame the white room. Your eyes glide from one work to another; you inhale the energy they emit. Walking along the walls and looking at the ceramics, you could draw a parallel with the arma christi to be found in Christian iconography. (These are the symbols of Jesus’ suffering, glued like stickers to the cross.) The passion of Christ pervades the beholder. Absorbing these symbols takes you from an everyday mindset and places you in a meditative state. Pacing past Liz Larner’s ceramics you don’t sense other people’s energies – you feel your own. You face abstract bodies and can connect them to your very own life. Abstract forms attached to the wall reflect back at the viewer.

The ceramic medium is maybe one of the very first stages of transforming a liquid into a solid. Clay offered humankind a possibility of engaging with material outside of their own body, of putting his or her information into a material, a form, and connecting it to their own energies.

Gazing into the first, matt black ceramic my mind is lost in the gravity and attraction of material from the past. Information has been placed carefully in the material. It feels incredible to shed my negativity and stick it to the ceramic. The next sculptural volume is covered in holes, showing parts of the white wall. I’m reminded of the room I am walking through. As I continue through the cycle I keep getting struck by my reflection in the shinier objects, feeling my very own presence more intimately. I walk another round, for another tour of self-reflection.

Larner grounds you in your body and presence, while opening up the possibility of discovering unconscious thoughts. She offers us a unique sculpture celebrating life. Every time you walk around you gain more. The work of Liz Larner works like a secular cloister.

The installation is an island in times of nihilistic dominance, where everything gets lost in the denial of life. It gives us a moment of happiness that could be from any time. Raw, simple forms transform the absence of feelings into complexity and presence. Consciousness is put into form.