THE NOTHINGS

new photographs by Anya Liftig

march 4-april 2, 2010

second floor gallery

pittsburg state university, pittsburg, ks

image: Untitled Japan 5, 2008

from the press release:

Anya Liftig, from Westport CT  will exhibit The Nothings in the Second Floor Gallery March 4 – April 2, 2010.  Liftig was awarded 1^st Place in the Pittsburg State University’s National Juried Exhibit The Feast by juror and San Francisco artist Liz Hickok for an image still from one of her performances.  This exhibit of her photography is part of the award. Liftig has a BA from Yale University and an MFA from Georgia State University.  Liftig’s art practice includes performance art, sculpture, installation and photography. She explores the chasm between the two worlds in which she grew up. She writes, “I am a collector. I collect the past and daily stare into the void of all the things that I lost—memories, scraps of paper, old scratched Tupperware. These things have equal weight for me. Growing up in a family spilt between the disparate cultures of my mother’s Appalachian Kentucky and my father’s Jewish New York, I danced in the chasm between their worlds. I learned to transmute. My work, expressed in a variety of mediums, is a reflection of that hybridization and integration.”

 

Her performance art and art practice combines an astute creative perspective with a poignant and intelligent exploration of challenging subjects that are often difficult to understand or talk about.  For her performance “Woven Room” she says, I have always thought that the most powerful visual metaphor for history is a knot--wrought and wrangled around itself. Textiles, like photographs, are composed of tiny little knots that capture the moments of our lives.”

 

Liftig has extensive international experience.  She taught photography in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, India and Vietnam and created innovative and experiential programs for the “Global Gap” in fourteen countries. Liftig has exhibited in Egypt, The Hague, Nuremberg German and around the US in Chicago, San Francisco and New York to mention but a few places.