Liz Magor: Everyone Should Have a Studio | Art21 'Extended Play'

Episode #244: While working on a cast sculpture of a paper bag, Liz Magor describes her Vancouver studio as a place for pleasure as well as productivity. "If I'm not here," says the artist, "I want to be here and I want to work." Magor maintains a quiet, elemental studio so that she is able to seek out "below the radar" systems embedded in the everyday objects and materials that inspire her. "It's a way to keep myself on a single focus—on a single track—and there's something pleasurable about that." As she reflects on the potential health benefits of maintaining a studio, Magor is shown installing an earlier cast bag sculpture, "Mademoiselle Raymonde" (2014), at Peep-Hole in Milan, Italy.

Liz Magor makes uncannily realistic casts of humble objects—garments, cardboard boxes, ashtrays—that speak to mortality and local histories. Magor’s delicate copies are often combined with found ephemera, whether tiny vices—such as cigarettes, candy, and alcohol—animals in the form of taxidermied birds and stuffed toy dogs, or small mementos given to her by friends or scavenged from the limbo of thrift stores. By resurrecting uncared for items and moments from the recent past, Magor preserves faint whispers of life in artworks that function as fossils do—exacting copies of existence.

Learn more about the artist at:

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster & Wesley Miller. Consulting Producer: Nick Ravich. Interview: Pamela Mason Wagner. Editor: Morgan Riles. Camera: Greg Bartels. Sound: Jeff Carter. Artwork Courtesy: Liz Magor. Special Thanks: Peep-Hole & Contemporary Art Gallery.

Art21 "Exclusive" is supported, in part, by the Art21 Contemporary Council.

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[glenanthony]

"it's like a place for physical philosophy". Brilliant concept. Thoroughly agree. :)

[clay_brick]

everyone should have everything they want and need as long as it is fun and alive tysm

[jennyhughes]

'Everyone should have a studio, they should be issued by the government as health-mandated items' = YES! I've been saying for ages that governments must build social AFFORDABLE housing that includes lots of live-work places for people (especially for those of us who've been traumatised/injured) - maybe with some shared facilities/tools such as presses & exhibition spaces & big/expensive items like silk-screen equipment & sewing machines. We need our therapy and societies need our creations. 

Lovely feeling of tranquility & calm & space here - & good storage. Oh and I put tracing paper up at the windows in my last place top reduce glare, prevent distraction and for privacy = looks like that or 'sand-blasted' glass in this studio!

[eekns]

Meditation is flow. I think as an artist you understand it well without understanding...Flow is pure meditation.

[БАБАЯГА-юч]

It's more like art therapy. Or am I an artist too🎨🎭👌

[jackfirmin]

"pleasure, without fun". thats art making, right there :-)

[yearofthedragonjane]

I really miss being able to have an art studio

[Boombayadda]

Spend 10 minutes with Lizzy and it will change your life.

[katerineella]

I like the idea that everyone should have a studio, a quiet place where they can do what they like. But when she said "they should be issued by the government", I had to laugh. The government doesn't care if you have a home or healthcare...

[awildacruz]

A small corner in a room to start - that can be a "studio".

[babaoriley]

Everyone should have a studio. That’s like saying everyone should have a therapist. Both would be lost on most people. I think this lady needs to go on some walks in fresh air a bit more.

[missinglink]

people can barely afford rent never mind a f*&ki*g studio.Elitist artist bag lady

[adriansaff]

there is something hilariously out of touch about "everyone should have a studio"

[insomb]

Yeah well art studio cost money, how are you supposed to afford that when you have to pay rent? I have an art degree btw. Art is a luxury.

[TaylorMade]

A paper bag is your art? It's already been done.