Liliana Porter The Strange Task

SECRIST | BEACH is pleased to announce a solo presentation for New York-based gallery artist Liliana Porter . The Strange Task will feature a variety of media including works on paper, sculpture and video all featuring Porter's coterie of endearing inanimate found objects, toys and figurines. This exhibition is presented concurrently with UNREAL , an invitational survey exploring contemporary anxieties and the surreal dimensions of everyday life. Born in Argentina in 1941 and based in New York since 1964, Liliana Porter has developed a enigmatic multidisciplinary practice spanning more than six decades. Working across video, photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, collage and small-scale installations, her work incorporates everyday found objects to investigate themes of identity, labor, and time, with an idiosyncratic blend of poetic metaphor and humor. Porter constructs situations in which ordinary objects are transformed into agents of reflection on the human condition. Porter is widely recognized as an important figure in conceptual, Latin American and feminist art. Her uniquely personal visual language is rooted in the theory of surrealism highlighting not only our relation to objects but the very nature of objecthood itself. By placing these toys and figurines in a specific context where they are either connected to each other or, conversely, directly connected to the viewer, the fidelity of emotional connection is enhanced. Objects and protagonists develop a narrative that is as approachable as it is meaningful, creating a reconsideration of our own everyday actions. As co-founder of the influential New York Graphic Workshop (1964), Porter also produced prints for the Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Although their artistic practices differ in both method and context. significantly, both artists share a commitment to distorting reality as a method of inquiry. This conceptual affinity situates Porter within a broader lineage of Surrealist experimentation, where altered perception functions as a means of probing psychological, cultural, and symbolic structures. Highlighting Porter's connection to this artistic movement, The Strange Task is presented alongside UNREAL , an exhibition featuring a group of artists whose work engages with contemporary manifestations of surrealism. The simultaneous presentation of these two exhibitions establishes a dialogue of contemporary approaches to the surreal, highlighting the relevance of imaginative distortion as a strategy for interrogating collective consciousness.