Between You and Me

Cali­for­ni­an artist Liz Craft (*1970 in Los Angeles, CA, USA) cre­ates sculp­tures and fig­ur­at­ive in­stall­a­tions that ap­pear to be frag­ments in space. They seem to tell us dream-like stor­ies sum­mon­ing an at­mo­sphere that can be as­so­ci­ated with Sur­real­ism, fairy tales or drug hal­lu­cin­a­tions. The form­al lan­guage of her works has an im­me­di­ate ef­fect on the view­er, the tech­niques and ma­ter­i­als mer­ging without hier­archy – ran­ging from fab­ric, plastic, glass and papi­er mâché to syn­thet­ic resin, ceram­ics and bronze. 

For her art, Craft draws primar­ily on ideas from the Amer­ic­an coun­ter­cul­ture of the 1960s, psy­che­del­ic ex­per­i­ences and pop cul­ture. She bor­rows im­agery from B-movies, West­erns and hor­ror films as well as from com­ics and the aes­thet­ics of amuse­ment park back­drops. Liz Craft fre­quently lifts fig­ures such as witches, uni­corns, mo­tor­cyc­lists, pir­ates and the Grim Reap­er out of their fa­mil­i­ar con­texts to quote, ex­ag­ger­ate or con­dense them in her works. 

Dis­played in the ex­hib­i­tion space, the works enter into re­la­tion­ships with each other, like act­ors in a theatre piece. The fig­ures’ gazes, words and ges­tures are ar­ranged in new con­stel­la­tions each time they are presen­ted, al­ways telling a dif­fer­ent story. In the series Speech Bubbles, wall sculp­tures whose shape re­calls the speech bubbles in comic books or in­stant mes­sages seem to be hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions amongst them­selves. The works bear punchy titles such as Suck it Hip­pie! (2017) or Do You Love Me Now (2019).  

Craft’s sculp­tur­al work has a sprawl­ing qual­ity, for ex­ample the wall piece Strange Thing (2018), a para­sit­ic or­gan­ism made of elec­tric­al switch boxes and cable lines that spreads out across the walls, ex­plor­ing its bound­ar­ies. The sculp­tures call to mind that par­tic­u­lar brand of Cali­for­ni­an ir­rev­er­ence that can be summed up by the words “Too Cool for School”. This phrase re­flects an at­ti­tude de­rived from Amer­ic­an teen movies, de­scrib­ing a cas­u­al but ar­rog­ant in­di­vidu­al who likes to defy rules and so­cial codes. 

SG Heart (1-8) (2021) fea­tures eight alu­mini­um hearts that re­semble jew­ellery pendants into which you can slide the photo of a loved one and flip it shut. In­side are pho­tos of people you have over­drawn with felt-tip pen and turned into zom­bies. How do you con­nect hor­ror with this sym­bol of love?

LC These are Po­lar­oid pho­tos my daugh­ter made. I had her make a few extra ones and I de­cided to use them. That’s why one says “I don’t want to do this any­more ...” I liked them be­cause over­draw­ing is a re­cur­ring ac­tion, young people con­tin­ue to do. We have all done this to either our own or someone else’s photo.

SG The wall piece Strange Thing (2018) con­sists of an elec­tric­al box and cable lines that stretch across the walls like a labyrinth, break­ing out of the usual frame­work. How im­port­ant is the ex­hib­i­tion space to you when present­ing your work?

LC I still think like an in­stall­a­tion artist even if I primar­ily focus on ob­jects. There are many works such as the word bubbles and the ones you men­tioned in your ques­tion that in­clude the idea of space in the idea of the work. I like when art breaches the bound­ary of the real world.

SG Strange Thing and Sub­way Creatures (both 2018) are based on ob­jects you en­countered in the un­der­ground. What in­ter­ested you about these ele­ments?

LC These came about from liv­ing in NY and spend­ing a lot of time un­der­ground. No­ti­cing the de­cay­ing in­fra­struc­ture of NY. The hun­dreds of old cables pil­ing on each other, lay­ers of paint on everything, old se­cur­ity bubbles that are re­min­is­cent of the 80s. It makes an im­pres­sion and you can’t help think of a sci­ence fic­tion book. At this time I also got into Métal Hur­lant*. This was also some­thing from my child­hood memory that could be re­vis­ited or re­ignited, it was sparked by being in those sub­ways all the time.

* Métal Hur­lant was a French sci­ence fic­tion and hor­ror comic magazine with an un­con­ven­tion­al style, pub­lished by Les Hu­man­oïdes As­so­ciés from 1975 to 1987 and 2002 to 2006.

SG You told me that your tables with a tile cov­er­ing, such as Liv­ing on the Edge (2016) de­veloped from the work Lazy Lady (2014). How did that come about?

LC I made the rect­an­gu­lar tile pieces first, and that led to the tile tables. The wall work looked like a table top so I thought, why not make a table ver­sion? I was­n’t com­pletely sat­is­fied with the rect­angle at the time, it was too much like a paint­ing. I like when things are more con­nec­ted to life, the rect­angle was bet­ter as a table, I thought, con­cep­tu­ally. This also led to mak­ing the word bubbles; I liked that the bubbles in­cluded people if they stood near them or the ar­chi­tec­ture, such as a door­way.

SG In Love-Hate-Re­la­tion­ship (2017) you chained an old bi­cycle frame to a large sculp­ture of a penis. How did you come up with this com­bin­a­tion?

LC This came about from obser-va­tion. When we moved to Ber­lin in 2016, I no­ticed, as I rode my bike around, how many of these poles that keep the cars from the side walk there are. They are every­where, these metal poles. I also no­ticed how many aban­doned bi­cycle car­casses there were around. They were chained to everything. So I did­n’t have to do much; the sculp­ture was already there. This is a great feel­ing when some­thing comes to­geth­er that eas­ily. It does­n’t al­ways work that way.

SG Through­out the ex­hib­i­tion, we en­counter nu­mer­ous works from your Speech Bubbles series whose shape re­minds of the out­lines of text ele­ments used in com­ics or text mes­sages. They seem to run through your work like a motif. What role do the Speech Bubbles play for you and why do they ap­pear re­peatedly?

LC Yes, they are ref­er­en­cing com­ics and text bubbles. I like that it does­n’t really mat­ter what is in the word bubble, the bubble can stand on its own and what’s in it is sec­ond­ary. So it gives me a lot of free­dom, and little pres­sure. I can work on them in an auto­mat­ic draw­ing sort of way. Some­times they are smart, other times blank, clev­er, ab­stract – it does­n’t mat­ter.
I like this part.
They also re­mind me of Artschwager­’s blps a little, which I also like.*

* Richard Artschwager­’s (1923–2013) blps (pro­nounced “blips”) were unique ovu­lar forms that the US-Amer­ic­an artist placed in vari­ous loc­a­tions in the pub­lic space from the late 1960s, in­clud­ing sub­way plat­forms and smokestacks. His in­ten­tion was to bring the pub­lic’s at­ten­tion to sur­faces and struc­tures that usu­ally go un­noticed. 

SG The Speech Bubbles are lan-guage con­tain­ers, even though you don’t al­ways place text in them, but also im­ages. Which im­port­ance does lan­guage have in your work?

LC I don’t work in a lin­ear way … I guess I use lan­guage in the titles and often write little things here and there for joke reas­ons, but I don’t use it to ex­plain the work, this is for sure. You don’t need to read wall text to un­der­stand some­thing about the work. If you want to know more, for sure you could read up, but I think it’s very visu­al work and does­n’t really rely on lan­guage. Maybe all these ref­er­ences to lan­guage – such as the speech bubbles – is just a way to refer to ideas that people have going on in the heads.

SG In this room, small-format sculp­tures are presen­ted to­geth­er with a se­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs. What does this se­lec­tion show?

LC The pho­to­graphs are from a book I made with DoPe Press, My Life in the Sun­shine. I made it scrap book style and prin­ted out hun­dreds of im­ages and ar­ranged them on the floor. The idea was to try and make a book that showed more about how I worked and where ideas came from and who I was around. To give a little more in­sight on how artists gen­er­ate work through life. It was also a re­sponse to the di­git­al world and In­s­tagram.

SG The term “Too Cool for School” has often been as­so­ci­ated with your work since the au­thor Den­nis Cooper men­tioned your name in his art­icle about art schools in LA pub­lished in the 1990s. How do you your­self as­so­ci­ate this phrase, which comes from Amer­ic­an teen films, with your artist­ic prac­tice?

LC It’s a funny phrase that has mul­tiple mean­ings; I of course like this kind of thing. It also makes me think of an 80s teen movie, which is why Den­nis prob­ably used it. I think it was cheeky and got us a lot of at­ten­tion. I don’t know if it has to do with my work, do I think I’m too cool? Maybe I did? Ask my ex-art deal­ers …

SG You stud­ied at UCLA. The school was a vi­brant and ex­uber­ant hub for artists and the Los Angeles art scene in the 1990s. How im­port­ant was the school en­vir­on­ment for you as an artist?

LC It was very im­port­ant; there were so many good artists around, teach­ing and vis­it­ing: in­ter­est­ing shows and gal­ler­ies. We were very lucky, this does­n’t hap­pen all the time. Be­cause it isn’t as simple as good artists teach­ing, there has to be the right chem­istry, ad­min­is­tra­tion, com­pet­i­tion of other schools, and between the teach­ers and of course good stu­dents.

SG 4 Clouds with Bottles (2023) is re­min­is­cent of the play­ful image com­bin­a­tions of sur­real­ism and eli­cits vari­ous as­so­ci­ations. Eyes pro­trud­ing in the cloud gaze in­tox­ic­atedly into the ex­hib­i­tion space. Next to it we see Between You and Me III (2018), which gives the ex­hib­i­tion its name. It con­sists of two mouths chained to­geth­er, which seems pleas­ur­able but at the same time vi­ol­ent to me. Are your works about the heights and depths of being human?

LC I sup­pose this could be true.

SG You are in­ter­ested in a wide range of visu­al ref­er­ences. What is the start­ing point when you cre­ate a new work of art?

LC I use found ob­jects, found im­ages, found phrases as a start­ing point … usu­ally. I fil­ter in what’s around me, or from a memory, one that sticks in my mind, such as Ms. Pac-Man. Other times I just work in a free as­so­ci­ation way, but I guess there is a frame­work of some sort to be free with­in, such as the word bubbles.

SG Ms. Pac-Man (2022) is a gath-ering of yel­low smi­ley faces with mouths agape and pink hair meshes. The grim­aces con­trast with black robes that only imply bod­ies and stand ghostly in space. What is it about these fig­ures? 

LC Ms. Pac-Man is such an image that sticks in my mind; it is like the smi­ley face and the emoji face … I like that they look in­sane, like they might eat you. You can’t tell if they are really, really happy or crazed. They re­mind me of my child’s fish in the fish tank. I spent a lot of time look­ing at them last winter.

SG You have made a se­lec­tion of sev­er­al video works by your artist friends that we can watch in this room. Why did you choose to show these works? 

LC I thought hav­ing the videos of friends was a nice ad­di­tion, sim­il­ar to show­ing the pages from the book I made (room 4). The book in­cludes friends, fam­ily, people in the scene, ref­er­ences etc. It gives a little con­text, videos I like, people I like. 

SG Quer­elle (2016) is a bronze sculp­ture of a penis with a net “spill­ing” into the room. The penis is an­oth­er re­cur­ring sub­ject in your work. Why do you use it as a motif?

LC For fun.

SG You use a vari­ety of ma­ter­i­als for your sculp­tures. These can range from clas­sic­al ones like bronze, or ceram­ic tiles to less dur­able com­pon­ents like papi­er mâché or candles. Some­times we also come across found ma­ter­i­als, such as coins or parts of an old bi­cycle. How do you choose your ma­ter­i­als?

LC It has to “make sense” either con­cep­tu­ally or out of prac­tic­al­ity. Whenev­er I say a thing like this that seems con­tra­dict­ory, I think it’s hard for people to un­der­stand. Some un­der­stand, I think. I don’t have con­crete rules. I do what is ne­ces­sary at the time and for that work.

SG Why did you choose ceram­ic as a ma­ter­i­al for the Speech Bubbles? 

LC It is like a sculptor’s ver­sion of draw­ing. And clay is the same ma­ter­i­al I use to sculpt the sculp­tures so it seems nat­ur­al.

SG In ad­di­tion to your lar­ger sculp­tures, there are a num­ber of smal­ler ones. Among them are hands, ges­tures or spiders. What role does the choice of scale play for you in your sculp­tures?

LC I most often start out big or at the scale I ima­gine and make a smal­ler ver­sion later. I work back­wards, I guess. A few start out small, if I am lazy or don’t have money. 

Scale is very im­port­ant to sculptors, for ex­ample the pony sculp­ture was made three times to get the size of the pony body right.

SG Your titles are fun, con­cise and bit­ing. For ex­ample, two large sculp­tures enter into a dia­logue about their titles. One asks the ques­tion What Are You Going to Do About It? (2017) and re­ceives a dry Go Fuck Your­self (2017) from the other. What role do you as­sign to the titles of your works?

LC I’ve got­ten more into the titles, I think in the last ten years. These titles worked par­tic­u­larly well, they really fit the ges­tures of the sculp­tures. They are an­oth­er com­pon­ent of the as­semblage.

SG How do you come up with your titles?

LC The words are like everything else, they are usu­ally found phrases …

SG The ma­ri­on­ettes of the Spider Ladies (2015) are grot­esque and un­canny, but at the same time sym­path­et­ic and human. The human being, who moves in pop-cul­tur­al and urban en­vir­on­ments, is at the centre of your work. We en­counter hands, ges­tures, eyes, lips, breasts and pen­ises, as well as voices. As a sculptor, what in­terests you about the human body? And how come you often only high­light single at­trib­utes?

LC That is a good ques­tion. I just do it in­tu­it­ively, I guess.
I also think they are not that un­com­mon in the world,
body frag­ments.

SG We meet witches, uni­corns, pir­ats or an alien. What in­terests you about these char­ac­ters?

LC A lot of the im­ages are from pop cul­ture, they don’t really be­long to any­one, so they are open-ended I think, in a way. It’s just like a ma­ter­i­al, or a col­our, and it starts to gen­er­ate move­ment, or nar­rat­ive. 

SG The Pony (2004) chal­lenges the bound­ar­ies of taste. Is kitsch im­port­ant in your work?

LC Yes, I am a stu­dent of the 90s and was a keen ob­serv­er of Mike Kelly and Jim Shaw. I think using taste or dis­miss­ing good taste is part of the work. I like this about Ame­lie von Wull­fen’s work as well.

Liz Craft (*1970 in Los Angeles, CA, USA, lives and works in Ber­lin, DE), stud­ied at Otis Par­sons and the Uni­ver­sity of Cali­for­nia, Los Angeles. In 2012, Craft co-foun­ded, along with Pentti Makkon­en, Para­dise Gar­age – an in­de­pend­ent, non-profit space ded­ic­ated to the present­a­tion of con­tem­por­ary art pro­jects loc­ated in the gar­age of her house in Venice (Cali­for­nia).

Craft has ex­hib­ited in­ter­na­tion­ally. Liz Craft’s work be­longs to the col­lec­tions of the Whit­ney Mu­seum of Amer­ic­an Art, New York; LACMA; MOCA and Ham­mer Mu­seum, Los Angeles; and Mig­ros Mu­seum für Ge­g­en­wartskunst, Zurich.

Change the build­ing to dis­­­cov­­er the second ex­­hib­i­­tion:

Zora Ber­­we­ger
GREET­ING THE UN­SEEN

CUR­AT­OR
Paul-Aymar Morgue d’Algue and Stefanie Gschwend 

TEAM
Anna Beck-Wörner, Re­gina Brül­isauer, Stefanie Gschwend, Chris­ti­an Hörler, Chris­ti­an Meier, Claudia Reeb, Madleina Ru­tishaus­er

EX­HIB­I­TION IN­STALL­A­TION
Chris­ti­an Hörler, Chris­ti­an Meier mit Ueli Alder, Roswitha Gobbo, Domin­ik Hull, Carina Kirsch, Nik­laus Ul­mann

MU­SEUM AT­TEND­ANTS
Raphaela Böhi, Domi­n­ique Franke, Mar­grit Gmünder, Roswitha Gobbo, Mar­grit Küng, Bar­bara Met­zger, Cristina Mosti, Madleina Ru­tishaus­er, Melanie Scher­rer

TEXT
Stefanie Gschwend, Paul-Aymar Morgue d’Algue

PROOFREAD­ING
Mi­chaela Alex-Eiben­stein­er

TRANS­LA­TION
Katja Nau­mann

COUR­TESY
pho­tos: Lea Kunz

 GRAPH­IC DESIGN
Data-Orbit / Michel Egger, St.Gal­len

AC­KNOW­LEDGE­MENTS
Zora Ber­weger, Liz Craft, Paul-Aymar Morgue d’Algue, Paul Bern­ard, Laura Weber, Team Kun­sthaus Pasquart / Centre dʼédi­tion con­tem­po­raine, Geneva, Fonds can­ton­al dʼart con­tem­po­rain, Geneva, Galer­ie Lo­even­bruck, Paris, MAMCO, Geneva, Swana Mourgue dʼAlgue, Neue alte Brücke, Frank­furt, Sé­bas­tien Peyret, FR, Anne Shelton Aaron and lenders who wish to re­main an­onym­ous