Liz Magic Laser

Situating her work in public spaces such as movie theatres, bank vestibules and newsrooms, multimedia and performance artist Liz Magic Laser explores how politics, psychology and technology affect human instincts. Often collaborating with actors, doctors, political strategists, motorcycle gang members and her own audience, Lazer’s practice echoes the concept of epic theatre coined by Bertolt Brecht. In the project I Feel Your Pain (2011), actors were conducting staged conversations with the audience in the movie theatre. The actors’ dialogues were appropriated from speeches and exchanges made by politicians and were adapted by Laser to reveal the theatricality of her source material, resembling domestic dispute, and blending public and private lives. The artist’s focus on theatrical tactics, and questions of power dynamics inherent in performativity produces provocative and engaging scripted performances that reveal the psychological underpinnings that operate in corporate and political cultures. Written by Goldsmiths CCA ...

Various Small Fires (Los Angeles /Dallas /Seoul) began as a series of conversations with artists and curators in Esther Kim Varet’s Venice Beach kitchen while working on her doctoral dissertation. VSF debuted in Hollywood as an official gallery in 2015 with a roster of artists and its current Johnston MarkLee Architects-designed building. The Hollywood gallery contains three exhibition spaces, a unique sound corridor, and an outdoor gallery. VSF’s exhibition program explores several curatorial lines: climate, equality, and an international conversation. The gallery is known for offering artists debut shows, creating intergenerational conversations among the artists on its roster, and solidifying artists’ legacies within art history. In 2019, VSF opened a second location in the Hannam neighbourhood of Seoul, South Korea, followed recently this Spring by VSFs third outpost in Dallas, Texas. While Varet has very personal connections to both locations, they are also superlative art communities. These expansions emphasise the gallery’s commitment to innovation and global dialogue in the twenty-first century. In 2021, VSF became a member of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). ...