Lara Schnitger

Lara Schnitger (1969, Haarlem, The Netherlands) is a Dutch American sculptor and painter who lives and works in Los Angeles and Amsterdam. Her practice combines rigid materials such as wood and resin with soft ones: leather, fur, silk, cotton, lycra, found textiles, to create sculptures and fabric works that address the ongoing struggle for women's equality within a culture of patriarchy. Techniques like dyeing, quilting, weaving and sewing are deployed alongside appropriated slogans and imagery drawn from sources as varied as Weimar Republic nightclubs, the Kabuki stage and 1980s street culture. The result is a deliberately unstable territory: between art and protest sign, sculpture and body, literal and figurative.

Schnitger's practice is rooted in a clear awareness of the histories and politics of her materials. Rather than invoking the domestic culture of "making do," her choices are precisely calibrated: her all-female cast of figures unmoored in time and place, her imagery oscillating between archaic totem and fashionably deconstructed mannequin. Female sexuality and depictions of the body serve as tools to challenge what is deemed acceptably feminine versus obscene, with sharp irony and an exuberance that is playful but never merely decorative.

Schnitger studied at the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten, The Hague (1987–1991); Academie Vyvarni Umeni, Prague (1991–1992); Ateliers '63, Amsterdam (1992–1994); and C.C.A., Kitakyushu, Japan (1999–2000).

Solo exhibitions include 16 Nipples in the afternoon, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2021); Victory Garden, Grice Bench, Los Angeles (2019); Too Nice Too Long, Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2017); In Real Life: Lara Schnitger, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Suffragette City, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims (2015); Never Alone, Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2010); Two Masters and Her Vile Perfume, SculptureCenter, New York (2009); The Artist's Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); My Other Car is a Broom, Magasin 3, Stockholm; Storm den Haag, The Hague; Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2005); and SpaceInvader, Vleeshal, Middelburg (1998).

Group exhibitions include Witch Hunt, Hammer Museum and Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2022); Dancing with Octopuses, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2021); En Plein Air, High Line, New York (2019); NO MAN'S LAND: Women Artists from The Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2015); Poor Art, Rich Legacy, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo (2014); Ordinary Madness, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2010); USA Today, Hermitage, St. Petersburg (2007); THING New Sculpture from Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2005); Building Structures, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2001); and Wild Walls, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1995).

Her work is held in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; The Saatchi Gallery, London; Perez Art Museum, Miami; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims; DZ Bank Kunstsammlung, Frankfurt; KW, Berlin; and ING Art Collection, among others.