Liliana Porter

The Strange Task

April 10 - June 13, 2026

Public Opening: Friday, April 10, 5-8PM

I would have to say that what art gives me is awareness. Awareness of this short period of time that we have, on one hand, and on the other hand, a way of understanding reality. It may sound corny or dramatic, but for me art is a form of salvation.

- Liliana Porter*

SECRIST | BEACH is pleased to announce a solo presentation for New York-based gallery artist Liliana Porter. Titled The Strange Task, this exhibition will feature a variety of media including painting, works on paper, sculpture and video all featuring Porter’s coterie of endearing inanimate found objects, toys and figurines. This exhibition is presented

concurrently with UNREAL, an invitational survey featuring a group of artists exploring contemporary anxieties and the surreal dimensions of everyday life.

Both exhibitions open Friday, April 10 from 5–8 PM at SECRIST | BEACH and remain on view through June 13, 2026.

Born in Argentina in 1941 and based in New York since 1964, Liliana Porter has developed a enigmatic multidisciplinary practice spanning more than six decades. Working across video, photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, collage, small-scale installations, and theatre, her work incorporates everyday found objects to investigate themes of identity, labor, and time, with an idiosyncratic blend of poetic metaphor and humor. Porter constructs situations in which ordinary objects are transformed into agents of reflection on the human condition.

Porter is widely recognized as an important figure in conceptual, Latin American and feminist art. Her uniquely personal visual language is rooted the theory of surrealism highlighting not only our relation to objects, but the very nature of objecthood itself. By placing these toys and figurines in a specific context where they are either connected to each other or, conversely, directly connected to the viewer, the fidelity of emotional connection is enhanced. Works included in the exhibition - such as To Get There, To Hold the String, To See a Bird, and To Do It Again - stage moments of quiet action and contemplation.

Objects and protagonists develop a narrative that is as approachable as it is meaningful, creating a reconsideration of our own everyday actions.

As co-founder of the influential New York Graphic Workshop (1964), Porter also produced prints for the Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Although their artistic practices differ in both method and context. significantly, both artists share a commitment to distorting reality as a method of inquiry. This conceptual affinity situates Porter within a broader lineage of

Surrealist experimentation, where altered perception functions as a means of probing psychological, cultural, and symbolic structures. Highlighting Porter’s connection to this artistic movement, The Strange Task is presented alongside UNREAL, an exhibition featuring a group of artists whose work engages with contemporary manifestations of surrealism. The

simultaneous presentation of these two exhibitions establishes a dialogue of contemporary approaches to the surreal, highlighting the relevance of imaginative distortion as a strategy for interrogating collective consciousness.

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Liliana Porter’s (b. Argentina, 1941, resides in New York since 1964) recent solo exhibitions include those at Dia Beacon in New York, Les Abattoirs in Toulouse France, El Museo de Barrio in New York City; The Perez Art Museum in Miami; Galería Luciana Brito in São Paulo, Brasil; ART OMI in Ghent, NY; Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA; El Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo; Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Franklin Rawson in San Juan, Argentina; Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, Mexico

Her most recent institutional exhibition took place at Dia Bridgehampton in 2025. Porter's most recent theatrical performance, THEM was co-directed with Ana Tiscornia with music by Sylvia Meyer and debuted in New York at The Kitchen in 2018.

Image: Liliana Porter

Woman Sweeping with Gold, 2025

Glitter and figurine one a pedestal

Dimensions variable