Visiting Artist: Liz Magic Laser

Video and performance artist Liz Magic Laser, whose work addresses the culture of contemporary politics and the politics of everyday life, will launch the 2012-13 Watkins Visiting Artists Series on Wednesday, December 5, at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film.

After a reception beginning at 6 p.m., Laser will discuss her career and creative process at 6:30 p.m. in the Watkins Theater. The event is free and the public is invited.

In her recent performance and video pieces, the New York-based Laser has endeavored to unsettle conventional expectations about both culture and politics in the increasingly mediated and commercialized public sphere. In these works, she has often restaged and re-contextualized political history and popular culture, and through this transformation, has frequently rendered them radically unfamiliar and subject to new interpretations. 

“Liz Magic Laser captures the absurdity and Machiavellian spirit of today’s culture and politics as well as any artist I know,” said Watkins assistant professor of art history Tom Williams, who met Laser when they were both fellows at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. “I believe that her work is a supreme example of ‘art in dark times.’”