Liane Lang uses mannequins to make subtle intrusions on cultural monuments and in the process plays with the tendency to attribute life to representations of the female, in the tradition of the Pygmalion myth. Important in her recent work is also a focus on monuments to women, and how female subjects have invariably been sidelined in the history of public statues. Liane’s work is underpinned by a mischievous desire to touch what is held apart as authoritative, a need to breach the distance between the person and the institution and turn the latter into something sensual. Within this is also an ethereal undercurrent – as if her dolls come to life only to exist as spirits in the halls of history, fated to play but never truly connect.
Liane Lang is an artist based in London. Born in Germany she studied at NCAD in Dublin and completed a BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College followed by a Postgraduate Diploma at the Royal Academy, where she graduated in 2006. Her work is concerned with notions of animacy, which she investigates through sculpture, photography and video works. Many of Lang’s works examine museum objects and the biographies they attempt to narrate, modes of display and the verisimilitude of art objects, particularly figurative sculptures and political monuments. Her works features extensively in important collections, including the Royal Academy in London, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Deutsche Bank, and the Arts Council of England collection.
