Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, The Marionette Maker at Luhring Augustine

Luhring Augustine is pleased to present The Marionette Maker, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. The artists have been collaborating since 1995, and are internationally recognized for their immersive multimedia works that often engage viewers in mysterious and dreamlike narratives.

Cardiff and Miller’s kinetic installation The Marionette Maker (2014) comprises a full-scale vintage caravan that houses myriad characters in a haunting environment. The interior of the trailer reveals the fantastic world of a marionette maker (a marionette himself), who is hunched over a desk drafting designs. Viewers are able to walk around the camper and peer inside the puppets’ domain, as well as sit in theater seats adjacent to the trailer to watch the characters perform an opera. Recordings of forests and rainstorms emanate from rotating speakers above the trailer, overlapping with music made by the robotically controlled marionettes positioned throughout the installation. The audio elements continually intermingle, further enveloping the audience into the immersive, voyeuristic environment.