The Armory Show

Liz Magic Laser named The Armory Show's 2013 Artist Commission

Innovative New York Artist Selected in Homage to Art Fair's Namesake, the 1913 Armory Show, in its Centennial Year

Partner Organizations MoMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New-York Historical Society celebrate 100 years of the Avant-Garde in America

New York, NY -- The Armory Show is pleased to announce that Liz Magic Laser has been chosen as the commissioned artist for the 2013 edition. Laser's practice crosses performance, theatre and installation. She has achieved international acclaim through recent exhibitions at venues such as the Mälmo Konsthall, the Performa 11 Biennial, The Kitchen and MoMA PS1. As the commissioned artist, Laser will help create the visual identity of the 2013 fair.

Lauded as one of the single most important events in the history of American art, the inaugural Armory Show of 1913 — which presented groundbreaking works by such artists as Duchamp, Kandinsky, Picasso, and Brancusi — brought the first seeds of the European avant-garde to U.S. shores. By showcasing the innovative work of Liz Magic Laser, The Armory Show is embracing its inherited legacy as a site of discovery and experimentation, bringing the cutting edge of contemporary practice to a broader public.

Noah Horowitz, Executive Director of The Armory Show notes, "In commemoration of the watershed exhibition of 1913 we are thrilled to work with Liz Magic Laser, whose ambitious oeuvre raises prescient questions of the artists' voice in the collaborative process and public life. With gestures veering from comedic to politically provocative, she will activate the fair's heritage as a site of innovation and discovery."

Michael Hall, Creative Director of The Armory Show, remarks "Laser's work operates within the connections and disconnections of satire, absurdist theater and public life. Her work frames and theatricalizes the ubiquitous, yet critically important noise of political speech: twenty-first century America's ultimate readymade."

Known for her participatory and performative works, Laser will turn an interactive market research strategy into a work of art, staging a series of focus groups composed of collectors, curators, art professionals and journalists, to determine the production of two limited edition artworks and paraphernalia associated with her Armory Show Commission. She will work alongside David Guinan of Polemic Media and focus group moderator Ben Allen of Labrador Agency. The proceeds of the limited edition artworks will benefit the Museum of Modern Art and the Pat Hearn & Colin de Land Cancer Foundation.

In addition to Armory programming that will take place leading up to and during the fair, several of our cultural partners will host exhibitions relating to the 1913 Armory Show and the development of modernism. During the fair, the Museum of Modern Art will present Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925 (December 23, 2012 – April 15, 2013), the Metropolitan Museum of Art will exhibit African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde (November 27, 2012 – April 14, 2013) displaying African artifacts acquired by New York's artistic community during the 1910s and 1920s, and the Montclair Art Museum will show The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913 (February 17 – June 16, 2013). In October of 2013, The New-York Historical Society will host The Armory Show at 100, featuring such canonical works as Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, first viewed on American soil at The Armory Show of 1913.

Liz Magic Laser Liz Magic Laser lives and works in New York City. She is a graduate of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and Columbia University's MFA program. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including Mälmo Konsthall, Mälmo, Sweden (2012); Swiss Institute with Forever & Today, Inc., New York (2012); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2012); the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2012); the Performa 11 Biennial, New York (2011); MoMA PS 1, New York (2010); Artisterium, Tbilisi, Georgia (2009); and the Prague Biennale 4, Czech Republic (2009). Gallery exhibitions include Derek Eller Gallery, New York (2012); Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2012); The Pace Gallery, New York (2011); and Casey Kaplan, New York (2011). She is a current resident at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Space Program, New York and has been a resident at Forever & Today, Inc.'s Studio On The Street artist-in-residence program, New York (2012), Smack Mellon, Brooklyn (2011) and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2009). Laser is the recipient of grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2012), the Times Square Alliance and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art (2010). Laser has an upcoming commission and solo show at DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas. Liz Magic Laser is her real name from birth.

History of The Armory Show Artist Commission The Armory Show introduced its annual artist commission in 2002 with Karen Kilimnik. Since then, Barnaby Furnas (2003), Lisa Ruyter (2004), Jockum Nordström (2005), John Wesley (2006), Pipilotti Rist (2007), Mary Heilmann and John Waters (2008), Ewan Gibbs (2009), Susan Collis (2010), Gabriel Kuri (2011) and Theaster Gates (2012) have also contributed to the visual identity of the fair. In 2006, The Armory Show began publishing an annual series of limited editions by its commissioned artists to benefit the Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Cancer Foundation and The Museum of Modern Art.

The Armory Show The Armory Show is a leading international contemporary and modern art fair with exceptional connections with American collectors, Museums Groups and the broader public. Each March selected international and American galleries present key artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries, in the fair’s central Manhattan location at the city’s historic Piers. In the last fifteen years, the fair has become an international institution combining a selection of the world's leading galleries with an exceptional program of arts events and exhibitions throughout New York during the celebrated Armory Arts Week.