Liz Larner
Two or Three or Something
1998–1999
Not on view
Date
1998–1999
Classification
Sculpture
Medium
Steel, paper, and watercolor
Dimensions
Overall: 105 3/8 × 64 7/8 × 64 1/2in. (267.7 × 164.8 × 163.8 cm)
Accession number
2001.31
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee
Rights and reproductions
Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles
© Liz Larner
Two or Three or Something recalls a Minimalist cube that has been reduced to a skeleton, then bent and contorted. The edges and corners seem to have a will of their own, torquing and swooping up off the floor. Liz Larner constructed this complex armature from steel wrapped in paper and then tinted a range of yellows with watercolor paints. Two or Three or Something is therefore both painterly and sculptural; or, as the title suggests, it vacillates between two and three dimensions. Larner has explained that she is interested in employing “line to make forms that could not be perceived at all if I were to use solid volume.” Conversely, she uses sculpture to investigate shapes that cannot be appreciated in a line drawing since her objects demand viewing from all angles. A former student of photography, Larner believes that the best sculpture defies photographic reproduction, instead demanding an active, resolutely physical experience.
