Fox in the Mirror

Overview

Liliana Porter’s film Fox in the Mirror captures a bizarre and fantastical concert that features a number of familiar figurines that appear repeatedly in her work. Made from terracotta, ceramic and plastic, the miniature characters represent dancers, singers and musicians, among other impersonations, and form an unlikely but evocative collective.

‘Performing’ to an original score composed by Porter’s collaborator Sylvia Meyer, the figurines appear to act out a series of vignettes that invite the empathy of the viewer. In much of her work Porter utilises toys and figurines that she finds in various flea markets and emphasises the human and therefore potentially real dimension of their character.

The film presents a series of scenes and scenarios that can be read in political, philosophical or existential terms. As Porter describes, 'The video is structured in the following segments – Preliminaries, Rehearsal, First Part, Intermission and Second Part – where brief scenarios allude to issues of time and language, as well as death and violence. In these plural scenes there is often a convergence of apparently incongruous elements, the familiar and the perplexing, the literal and the metaphorical, the tragic and the comical. Ultimately, the work is about the meaning of reality and the awareness of our role as creators responsible for that meaning.'

Artist’s quotation from Provisions, Book 1, catalogue for Sharjah Biennial 9.


This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 9