Larry Miller

PROVENANCE: Courtesy of the Artist

Shown in this photographic “durational film strip”, SLAB (1 st , 4 th , 33 rd day) was an
ephemeral Event, created on-site in the spring season of 1970 from nature-given
materials, as an evocation of origins, endings and the regeneration of “greener
grasses”.

This 50 th anniversary, special edition print underscores the inquiry I was making at this
transitional period in realizing that there really are no distinctions in the space-time
realm of art-within-life that distinguishes an “Object” from an “Event”, such as IS also, by
extension, the case for all of us as temporal beings – each with an expiration date, as
part of the Natural Order. In this sense, SLAB was a sculptural configuration of entropy and renewal, and is
fundamental in relation to a larger body of Miller’s work with organic materials, including
a preceding work “Carrot Piece” 1969, remade in 1970 for the first group show at 112
Greene Street Gallery in SoHo, and subsequently recreated in 2011 for the exhibition
112 Greene Street. The Early Years (1970-1974), presenting works by Gordon Matta-
Clark and related artists, at David Zwirner Gallery in NYC.

Larry Miller is an Intermedia artist whose work has been presented extensively in global venues since his initial solo exhibition in NYC in 1970. He was active in the development of performance-based works in SoHo’s earliest alternative spaces, which gained critical attention as "installation art", including the renowned 112 Greene Street, Anthology Film Archives, Franklin Furnace, PS1, The Clocktower, and The Kitchen.

Miller is known for pioneering poetic strides – probing art and social issues, ironically conflating unusual physical media: biological, psychic “mediums”, and using hypnosis as new tools to weave temporal materials into art matrices within conceptual structures.

Formative works featured ephemeral materials: sewn carrots, edible chocolate castings, fading chlorophyll of grass blades and dirt impressed by actions into paper and canvas as “de-compositions”. He used paranormal means to explore “invisible energies” and
mined information from inanimate objects, documented with audio, video and photography. Since 1989, he became widely known for works that highlight the controversies surrounding genetic technologies, especially his multi-language public actions for copyrighting one’s DNA genome.

Miller first became associated with the core group of Fluxus in 1969. Going forward – as an artist, performer, composer and organizer – he was influential in spreading new approaches to international audiences and younger generations.

Mom-Me 1973, a ground-breaking work in which Miller was hypnotized to take on the persona of his mother as an origin “object”, merging trance-induced life-sized portraits, post-hypnotic drawings, personal and family photographs with video documentation of the process. Shown in “The Third Mind…” exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 2009, Mom-Me will be featured in “Hypnose” this October in the Nantes Arts Museum, France.

Miller’s works are represented in many public institutions, including MoMA, the Whitney, Walker Art Center, Tate Britain, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Getty, Venice Biennale 1990 and in many notable private collections.