Jac Leirner, Todos os cem (lista de compras) (All one hundred - shopping list), 1998, out-of-circulation Brazilian bills, 36 x 35 cm
Born into a family of artists, art critics, and dealers, Jac Leirner didn’t care for collecting art, instead she focused on collecting things. As she says, “I don’t buy. I just search for language.” She has spent her life turning uninspiring “things” into iconic works: in addition to Pulmão’s (Lung) cigarette packs, there are the business cards given to her throughout her life that form Foi um prazer (Nice to meet you) and the collected bumper stickers on glass of Adesivo 44 (Adhesive 44). 144 Museum Bags is exactly like it sounds— mounted and stuffed plastic bags from museum gift shops.
Jac Leirner, Lung, 1987 Marlboro cigarette packages strung on a polyurethane cord Dimensions variable, 14' 5 1/4" (440 cm) to 15' 9" (480 cm) wide
Jac Leirner, Lung, 1987
Jac Leirner, Lung, 1987
Adhesive 44, 2004 Stickers, windows, two metal support structures dimension: Two parallel rows, each 34 feet in length
Jac Leirner, 144 Museum Bags
It’s truly baffling how Leirner manages to uncover poetry in such banal objects. Poets tend to stretch upward for that one perfectly transcendent word, while Leirner reaches into the trash over and over again. She makes a year’s worth of empty envelopes (To and From) rise and fall like a wave, then open up in individual, dynamic shapes. She has a rare ability to see the tiniest spark of defiance, personality, and storytelling in the mundane—even in the graffiti on hundreds of banknotes in a time of hyperinflation (Os cem [The One-Hundreds]). Then she lets her formal skills take over so that, as Starr writes, the quotidian object’s “inherent absurdity or beauty becomes visible and its inherent meaning becomes apparent.” Nelson calls this trait in “discovering transgression,” but it’s a subtle transgression—the type of measured rebellion to be expected from an artist who played bass in a punk band in her early 20s while still holding on to a love of classical music. Leirner recognizes the latent power in crude forms but has the vision to transform them into something provocative, sophisticated, and stunning.
Jac Leirner, To and From, 1991 (MOMA Oxford) mixed media sculpture with envelopes and wire, 46 x 325 x 33 cm
Jac Leirner, Os Cem (The Hundred), 1986
Jac Leirner, Os Cem (A Roda) (The Hundred - The Wheel), 1986, 80cm diameter
Recently, her works have been re imaginings of older works, as she keeps finding new ways of dealing with old materials. For instance, she’s returned to the plastic bags, this time cutting out their centers and [scrapping the remains of "branding"]. It’s her way to “keep thinking art.” While Leirner strives to avoid autobiographical representation, her materials—taking on a second life as art, once their functional duty is fulfilled—embody a sense of one person’s wasted time: cigarettes smoked, bags emptied, dollars spent. Each work comes with its own previous life, its own story. It’s this implied action that I find so fascinating; it’s as if Leirner can’t stop thinking art.
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