Liliana Porter and Douglas Huebler

The current exhibition features works by Douglas Huebler and Liliana Porter. Both artists use reduced visual means to explore ideas of assumption, connection, extrapolation, and imagination, and, for each artist, humor plays a key role in beckoning viewers to explore, participate, question, and wander.

Douglas Huebler (b. 1924, Ann Arbor, Michigan; d. 1997, Truro, Massachusetts) came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s for making visual work that combined photographs, drawings, and/or maps along with written texts (as captions or descriptions of a process, structure, or system that relate to the imagery). Huebler created visual experiences that ask a viewer to question, doubt, and perhaps explore trust. 

Liliana Porter (b. 1941, Buenos Aires, Argentina, lives in New York City and Rhinebeck, New York), like Huebler, came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Initially known for her activities with the New York Graphic Workshop, Porter made work that balanced between the use of trompe-l’oeil and empty visual space so as to allow a viewer’s imagination to complete an image. Using actual and painted shadows, physical scratches made by images of nails, and images of wrinkles on flat and on wrinkled paper provided the artist with a wealth of opportunities to confuse and delight a viewer. Over time, Porter’s imagery became less dry and her use of quotations from the realm of commercial production (postcards, well-used toys, etc.) increased. Playfulness took center stage and more emotional room became available for the audience to imagine a fuller narrative.