“Unidentified Dangerous Beautiful Objects: Sculpture and Works On Paper by Claire Lieberman”
an online exhibition
this online exhibition can be viewed at Artsy
Exhibition dates: July 15 – September 15 2022
Unidentified Dangerous Beautiful Objects: Sculpture and Works On Paper by Claire Lieberman brings together nineteen works in carved marble, handmade paper and relief prints. These mash-ups of children’s toys and lethal weapons embody the dichotomies of beauty and danger, seduction and destruction, indulgence and guilt, the sublime and the quirky. The works in this exhibition, all monochromatic, juxtapose aspects of Pop, Minimalism and Surrealism. This exhibition is online and can be viewed on Artsy through September 15, 2022.
above: “Rattle”, 2022 (l), “Grenade With Flowers”, 2017 (r). Black marble.
below: “Space Hibiscus”, 2022 (l). Linocut on Fabriano Artistico paper, edition of 20; “Starfleet”, 2017 (r). Relief print on hand made Korean paper, edition of 20.
My overarching project is exploring the reverberations of violence in contemporary culture through the lens of games and play. Games, strategy, and child’s play echo conflict and its repercussions. I want to make sculpture that is both gorgeous and raw.
Claire Lieberman
O ver the course of her career Claire Lieberman has created a sizable body of prints, many of which have been produced at Manneken Press, frequently using the medium to explore formal aspects of her 3-D work. Paper, however, is a new avenue for the artist. Her paper works are pulp-painted with black pulp over handmade sheets of cotton paper, produced in editions of 5. Many of these stark, graphic images relate directly to the marble work and stand as iconic diagrams of them. In addition to the paper works several relief prints are included in the exhibition as well.
above: “Big Butterfly”, 2022. Hand made paper with pulp painting, edition of 5.
L ieberman’s black marble sculptures have a totemic presence and can be read as ominous tokens in a kind of menacing board game. Their sleekly seductive forms, polished surfaces and weighty elegance are at once playful and vaguely antagonistic.
Her sculpture, paper works and prints are all beautifully and painstakingly made. In these works Lieberman unites conceptual rigor with an engagement with a tradition of craftsmanship and the time-honored media of stone carving, analog printmaking and hand papermaking.
Click here to view all of Claire Lieberman’s prints.
above: “Funny Ball”, 2022. Linocut on Fabriano Artistico paper, edition of 20.
Unidentified Dangerous Beautiful Objects: Sculpture and Works On Paper by Claire Lieberman can be viewed online on Artsy now through September 15, 2022.
Contact Manneken Press for additional information or to inquire about purchasing any of the works in the exhibition.
About the artist
Claire Lieberman is a sculptor and printmaker whose work explores material instability and perceptual dislocation. As a sculptor, she works with both traditional and experimental materials—including Jell-O, alabaster, wax, glass, rubber, and marble—alongside video and photography to create installations that unsettle expectations of solidity and permanence. As a printmaker, Lieberman translates the formal concerns of her often ephemeral sculptural works into two-dimensional form.
By juxtaposing solid and transient materials with static and kinetic imagery, Lieberman constructs a surprising reality in which the perceived rigidity of image and material begins to dissolve. Her work blurs distinctions between permanence and impermanence, inviting viewers to reconsider the physical and conceptual limits of form.
Lieberman holds an MFA from Pratt Institute and a BFA from Tufts University. She has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, including the Chelsea Art Museum, New York; Forum Schlossplatz, Zurich; Musée des Arts Décoratifs et du Design (mudac), Lausanne; Seoul Arts Center, Korea; Queens College Art Center, New York; and The LAB, New York. She has also completed public commissions in Providence, Rhode Island; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Salina, Kansas.
Her work has been reviewed in Whitehot Magazine, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, and Art on Paper.
Claire Lieberman lives and works between Bloomington, IL and New York City.
