Liz Magic Laser

Primal Speech

Jupiter Artland is pleased to present Primal Speech, an immersive mixed media installation produced by Brooklyn, NY based artist Liz Magic Laser. Laser’s therapeutic video and environment guided viewers to express and exorcise their sociopolitical and personal frustrations.

For the video, Laser assembled a pseudo therapy group composed of actors with opposing political convictions about Brexit and the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The artist encouraged them to revisit and conflate childhood traumas with their current political frustrations. Laser collaborated with Certified Professional Life Coach, Valerie Bell, trained in Primal Therapy techniques, to elicit connections between traumatic experience and politic beliefs.

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Upon entering The Tin Roof Gallery, the viewer encountered Laser’s futuristic version of a primal scream room with soft grey padded walls and therapeutic devices such as punching pillows and a screaming vase.

The artist created sculptural pillows that reflected regional political emblems and for the installation at Jupiter Artland the collection included symbols for the Scottish National Party’s thistle, Scottish Labour Party’s rose and the Scottish Liberal Democrat’s bird of liberty. Primal Speech, builded on Laser’s recent project, Identification Please, for Kunstverein Goettingen, which used psychodrama techniques to facilitate a performative dialogue between a group of teenage refugees and German students.

Primal Speech proposed the use of outrage to unearth one’s authentic voice and maximize its impact in a volatile world. “Primal Speech,” Liz Magic Laser, 2016, single-channel video installation, 11:50 minutes. With therapeutic activities conducted in collaboration with Certified Professional Life Coach Valerie Bell. Actors: Gisela Chípe (Lead), Armeliane Bindickou, Adam Davenport, Mari Hayes, Adele Jacques, Rhiannon Lattimer and Tom Staggs. Director of Photography: Chris Heinrich. Assistant Director: Hanna Lea Novak. Assistant Camera: Sam Krebs. Audio Engineer: Joe Quartararo. Audio Assistant: Trevor Hoar. Casting Assistant: Rachel Zaretsky. Editors: Liz Magic Laser and Ben Bernstein. Therapist’s script written in collaboration with Valerie Bell with contributions from Gisela Chípe. Produced with support from Various Small Fires, Los Angeles.

About Liz Magic Laser

Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981, New York, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) earned a BA from Wesleyan University (2003) and an MFA from Columbia University (2008). She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (2008) and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (2009). Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany (2016); Mercer Union, Toronto (2015); Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2015); Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2015); Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2013) the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (2013); DiverseWorks, Houston, Texas (2013); and Mälmo Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden (2012). Her work has also been shown at Swiss Institute (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2016); The Whitney Museum of American Art (2015); Le Mouvement: 12th Swiss Sculpture Exhibition ESS SPA (2014); Lisson Gallery, London (2013); the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2012); the Performa 11 Biennial, New York (2011); the Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2011); and MoMA PS 1, New York (2010). Laser is the recipient of grants from Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation (2013), the Southern Exposure Off-Site Graue Award (2013), New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2012) and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art (2010). Laser has a upcoming solo show at Jupiter Artland (Scotland) and at CAC Brétigny (France) in May, 2017. She is represented by Various Small Fires, Los Angeles and by the Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam.