Liz Craft, Brave new world, March 2020, video, 17’’, 2020
Liz Craft belongs to a generation of artists who have been strongly inspired by the kitsch and libertarian imagination of the West Coast of the United States. Her universe oscillates between the very light, informal spirit of 1970s Flower Power and the militant sexuality of the 1980s. Craft’s interest in utilitarian and current materials leads her to combine them in sculptures, often puppets or dolls, cobbled-together but very expressive figures which blur the boundaries between arts and crafts, but also between installation and the stage, between fiction and personal narrative.
For the first part of the Videos: new and revisited project, we present a short film by Liz Craft, Brave new world, March 2020, video, 17’, 2020, which was recorded on an iPhone in the Joshua Tree National Park in south-eastern California during the March 2020 lockdown. This endless tracking shot travels through the desert, devoid of any tourists or living souls, giving an impression of freedom and movement, vertiginous in the context of this strangely static and locked-down moment. This film was part of a commission extended to several artists during the lockdown and the closure of the CEC, including Guillaume Dénervaud, Giulia Essyad, Paul Paillet, Mai-Thu Perret and RM. This series of short films or images was broadcast on the CEC’s Instagram page in a mini-series called “MEANWHILE,” until the CEC was able to reopen in May 2020.
Liz Craft (1970, Los Angeles) lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, such as Ms. America at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2022); Cavern at the Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt (2022); Do You Love Me Now? at the Kunsthalle und Kunstmuseum, Bremerhaven (2022). She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Kreislaufprobleme at Croy Nielsen, Vienna (2019), Tainted Love at Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2018); Sueurs Chaudes at South Way Studio, Marseille (2017).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
