Review of Maria Lassnig at Tate Liverpool

06/06/16

Maria Lassnig

Tate Liverpool

18 May - 18 September 2016

“[The body] is more or less the most difficult subject to paint. Something you don’t actually see”.

This summer, Tate Liverpool is going all out with (often quite grotesque) paintings of the body, exploring the fundamental problem of its location, both on canvas and in the world, by presenting a double bill of exhibitions of two key figurative artists from the 20th century, Francis Bacon (1909-92) and Maria Lassnig (1919-2014). While the former is a household name, the latter is significantly less well known, despite a career spanning 70 years and time spent in Vienna, Paris and New York. This exhibition of 40 large-scale works, presented thematically and with a well-researched accompanying catalogue, more than measures up to its counterpart across the hallway.

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Interview with Aura Satz

21/01/16
Interview: Aura Satz

When she was pregnant with her daughter in 2003, the London-based artist Aura Satz (b1974, Barcelona) used her belly as the antenna for a bespoke theremin – a musical instrument that is played by proximity and hand gestures. She was already a performance artist and sculptor, but this new performance piece awakened Satz’s interest in sound and the correlation – or, more often, mismatch – between sound and vision. Since then, and increasingly through the medium of film, Satz has been exploring acoustics, vibration, sound visualisation and musical gesture. Another strand to her work focuses on gender and women’s (often unseen) contributions to technology. Many of her works combine the two, with months of research and complex backstories, which often remain largely unappreciated by her audience. 

With a retrospective drawing to a close at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, and a new exhibition opening in Dallas, Satz invited Studio International to her studio to take a look at her work on screen and to hear about some of these thrilling and enthralling footnotes.

Read the interview here