LORA FOSBERG
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THE CHICAGO READER/ARTS & CULTURE
Lora Fosberg gets the last laugh
In a new show, the Chicago artist delves into the existentialism of the midwest.
by Charles Venkatesh YoungMarch 26, 2024
Installation view, Lora Fosberg, "Help. I'm Alive," Zolla/Lieberman Gallery Credit: Courtesy the gallery
Lora Fosberg made a name for herself baring the midwestern psyche in farcical installations replete with snippy, conversational bits of text. Her current show at Zolla/Lieberman, however, foregrounds a new set of innocuous midwestern landscapes. They may appear, as the exhibition text states, a “foil to [her] signature comedic existentialism,” but thorough examination reveals that Fosberg’s hilarious contradictions and ironic witticisms are operating on a subtler wavelength.
Two perfectly framed nature scenes—one white-on-black, the other black-on-white—hang on the gallery’s far wall. Though the two landscapes are nearly identical in subject, their chromatic inversion imbues each with its own psychic qualities—the former appears idyllic, the latter ominous. What silly, fallible humans we are to respond so strongly to a mere palette reversal. The works’ titles, Forever Is Not Enough and Beyond Was All Around Us, respectively, reach toward the sublime and are rendered impotent by our mechanistic and easily fooled perception of their contents.
Less muted in their irony are Fosberg’s cartoonish porcelain skulls. If traditional memento mori say “remember you must die,” Fosberg’s use of the motif teases, “Aren’t you just cute as a bug under all that skin?” The sense that humans know much less than they presume to, especially on the well-trodden subjects of nature and death, is palpable in this newer work. Whether the artist is laughing with viewers in celebration of their collective absurdity or mocking their cloying sentimentality, however, remains unclear.
“Help. I’m Alive”
Through 4/20: Tue-Fri 10 AM-5 PM, Sat 11 AM-5 PM, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, 325 W. Huron, zollaliebermangallery.com/lora-fosberg—help-im-alive.html
