VADUZ.- For more than fifty years, Eleanor Antin (b. 1935 in New York, USA) has been one of the ground- breaking voices of her generation. A pioneer of artistic self-promotion, she creates and embodies fictitious characters to raise key questions of identity, history and representation. Her work unites profound humour with subtle storytelling. Antin’s cross-media practice – which includes photography, film, text, performance, sculpture and installation – invites us to take a fresh look at familiar narratives and discover surprising perspectives on how we see ourselves and society as a whole.
This retrospective – the first ever in Europe – examines the complexity of Antin’s oeuvre, demonstrating how timely and powerful her work remains today. The show covers the period from Antin’s early performances from the 1960s to recent works.
The artist’s early iconic works include the legendary postcard series 100 Boots (1971–1973) – an adventurous, staged journey of one hundred black rubber boots from California to New York – and the photographic work CARVING: A Traditional Sculpture (1972). In this piece she shapes and charts her own body over the space of 37 days in the manner of a sculptor, radically questioning notions of self-determination and corporeality.
Antin’s personae: king, ballerina, nurse
The focus of her work is on performative self-presentation, a practice with which Antin has been probing the fluid existence of the self since the late 1960s. She develops various figures and personae – king, ballerina or nurse – that embody different identities, historical references and inner contradictions. One aim is to investigate social roles, power structures and cultural attributions, deliberately employing ambivalence, fiction and staging as artistic devices.
“The King came first, when I wanted to see what my male self would be like, who he would be. And I realized my bearded self was a king—a dead ringer for Charlie One—and kings must have a country, a kingdom—even if a lost one. He became my political self.”
The king was followed by further personae or “selves,” as Antin calls them. The ballerina first appeared in 1973. While she features in photographic series as the ideal embodiment of a prima ballerina, a video describes the making-of in the photo studio, thus revealing the constructed nature of the poses. The nurse, Antin’s third persona, is her most ambivalent and mischievous figure: both seductress and seduced, she oscillates between subjection and agency. Like a child completely absorbed in its play, she develops her narratives with paper dolls that speak and act, cry, laugh, and have sex.
Historical references and deliberate theatricality
In later works, Antin, whose parents were Polish émigrés to the United States, engages explicitly with her Jewish cultural heritage: in The Man Without a World (1991), a full-length silent film purporting to be a work by the fictitious Soviet Jewish director Yevgeny Antinov, or in the impressive, expansive installation Vilna Nights (1993–1997/2025). Like a theatre backdrop, the piece invites the viewers to immerse themselves in a world that no longer exists.
In her late work, the artist plays the part of director, guiding her actors in carefully staged roles. The Historical Takes (2004–2008), Hollywoodesque images of an overdrawn Graeco-Roman antiquity, depict decadent excess and explore the theme of the fall of empires. By reenacting historical scenes, Antin reveals parallels between the past and present, unmasking the illusions of the spectacle and the fragility of power on the verge of collapse.
Curated for Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein by Christiane Meyer-Stoll with Henrik Utermöhle. The exhibition was initiated and organised by Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean where it was on show until 8 February 2026. After Vaduz, the exhibition travels to MOCAK – Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków.
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Eleanor Antin. Works 1965–2017 – the most comprehensive monograph on Eleanor Antin to date – and Manfred Naescher’s edition 2 Boots (after Eleanor Antin) (2026), created especially for Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein.
Saâdane Afif will be staging a new performance at the closing event on 27 September 2026.
Publication
The publication Eleanor Antin. Works 1965–2017, edited by Vanessa Joan Müller and Bettina Steinbrügge, with contributions by Lisa E. Bloom, Andrea Bowers, Haden Guest, Ingrid Luquet- Gad, Jason McBride, Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Olaf Nicolai, Alexandro Segade and Bettina Steinbrügge, is published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin (ISBN: 978-3-7757-6108-6).
The artist Eleanor Antin (b. 1935 in New York) is a key figure who emerged from the conceptual art movements of the 1970s. Antin began as a poet and actor before devoting herself to the visual arts. In 1969 she relocated from New York to San Diego, where she got heavily involved in the local feminist movement. From 1975 to 2002 she taught at the University of California in San Diego and was a central figure in a vibrant community of artists and writers associated with the university.
Over the past fifty years, Antin has exhibited and staged her work around the world. Numerous solo exhibitions have been dedicated to her work, including Multiple Occupancy: Eleanor Antin’s ‘Selves,’ ICA, Boston (2014); Eleanor Antin: Historical Takes, San Diego Museum of Art (2008); Eleanor Antin: Real Time Streaming, Arnolfini, Bristol and Mead Gallery, Warwick (2001); Eleanor Antin Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1999), and Eleanor Antin: Selections from The Angel of Mercy, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1997). Her pioneering series 100 Boots was shown for the first time in 1975 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Antin’s works have recently been on show in major group exhibitions, for example, Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2023), Mapping an Art World, MOCA, Los Angeles (2023), and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2023). As a performance artist she has appeared at numerous international venues, including the 37th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2005) and the Sydney Opera House (2002).
