Exhibitions

LILIANA PORTER: MAN WITH AXE AND OTHER STORIES

Frist Art Museum / 919 Broadway February 5, 2021 - May 2, 2021

Liliana Porter

Argentina-born artist Liliana Porter’s provocative arrangements of objects and toys tell stories that are at once psychologically charged and slyly humorous. The centerpiece of the exhibition, Man with Axe, features a tiny plastic figure of an axe-wielding man who appears to have demolished an array of items, from dollhouse furniture to large vases, clocks, and even a full-size piano. This trail of destruction signals both the entropic effects of time and the collapse of historical progress that can be caused by a single agent of chaos. In Man with Axe, Porter (b. 1941) asks big questions: Who are we? What do we do? What’s it about?

Image: Liliana Porter. Man with Axe and Other Stories (detail), 2017. Figurines, objects, and wooden base, dimensions variable. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez, 2017.013. © Liliana Porter. Photo: Rhinebeck Studio