Larry Miller

Biography

Closely associated with the Fluxus movement, Larry Miller has produced a diverse body of experimental art works. Miller was a key figure in the emergent installation and performance movements in New York in the 1970s, presenting work in spaces such as 112 Greene Street Gallery, Franklin Furnace, PS 1, and the Kitchen. His installations and performances have been groundbreaking in their integration of diverse mediums and materials.

Miller's single channel works can be divided into two categories: documentary videotapes of Fluxus interviews, performances and events; and Miller's own video pieces, which were often components of larger installations and performances. Over the past 30 years, Miller has shot and collected an impressive number of Fluxus related materials, including the 1978 Interview with George Maciunas. Forthcoming Fluxus projects include tapes on the artists Joe Jones, Carolee Schneemann, Ben Vautier, Dick Higgins, and Alison Knowles.

The videotapes from Miller's own performances and installations participate in the mode of experimentation and critical inquiry that marks his body of work as a whole. His video pieces focus particularly on the links between objects and underlying psychological structures and states of consciousness. Like many of his sculptures and installations, they suggest the affects of temporality and absence upon perception and representation. Throughout all of his works, Miller's ironic, insightful approach provides the bridge that links his seemingly disparate interests: the mutual influence of metaphysical, psychical, and material realms, and the radical, demystifiying approach of the Fluxus movement.

Larry Miller was born in Missouri in 1944. He received his MFA from Rutgers University, and began exhibiting his work in New York in 1970. Miller's work has been exhibited and performed in museums, galleries and institutions around the world, including The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The New Museum, Gallery LeLong, Stux Gallery, and Emily Harvey Gallery, New York; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; The Venice Bienalle, Italy; Akademie Der Kunste, Daadgalerie and Bonner Kunstverein, Germany; Ecole Nationale Des Beaux Arts, Galerie 1900-2000, France; and in numerous exhibitions in Europe, Korea, Japan, Australia, and Canada. Miller has received grants and fellowships from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, Creative Artists Program, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His performance residencies have included Portland School of Art, Maine; Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Santa Barbara Museum, California and has taught and lectured at colleges and universities throughout the country. In 1986, Miller was the subject of a retrospective and catalogue, As If the Universe Were An Object at the Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C. He lives in New York.