Rob and Lizzi met over twenty years ago. Since then, thanks to the friendship, the tenderness and the curiosity they have for one another, they never lost sight of each other. They both still live in New York, where I met with them last winter.
In his studio in Prospect Park, Rob is followed everywhere by his dog Gilda; a melancholic giant and a tiny genius, the two of them make for a charming odd couple, and their image alone attests to Rob’s sense of irony and his candour as an artist.
Lizzi has recently moved to a studio on the other side of the river, on the seventh floor of a Financial District high-rise. She welcomed us amidst an array of found objects, each of which carries a memory or a story. Though she knows some of them better than others – a dress once worn by Yoko Ono, Ivan Julian’s piano – it seems as if they were all made for her. Her studio is nowhere near high up enough to see the sky, but she knows when the sun hits the building next door and reflect its light back at her.
Similarly, this exhibition is about two people who have found the best angle and the perfect distance to look at each other, and who, whether through skill or divine attention, have found ways to shine light back and forth at one another and be illuminated in return
