Anya Liftig (born 1977) is an American performance artist and memoirist.

Early life Liftig was born in 1977 in Norwalk, Connecticut. Her parents were both public school teachers, although her father was from an upper-middle-class Jewish family and her mother was from Appalachian Kentucky. She cites her annual tradition of spending her school years in Westport and her summers with her extended family in East Kentucky as influences on her artwork.

After graduating from Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, Liftig enrolled at Yale University. While there, she was a member of the literary fraternity St. Anthony Hall. A member of Morse College, she graduated with a degree in English.

While a full fellowship student at Georgia State University, Liftig's work shifted from photography to performance pieces. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Georgia State University in 2004. Liftig's thesis, self-evidence, was the first live performance art thesis exhibited at GSU.

Career

Visual and performance art Before transitioning to performance art, Liftig's early photography work was documented in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Public Culture. Since returning to the New York area in 2005, Liftig has curated and performed at the TATE Modern, MoMA, Center for Performance Research, Panoply Performance Lab, Highways Performance Space, Lapsody4 Finland, FADO Performance Art Centre in Toronto, Performance Art Institute San Francisco, Queens Museum, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Rose Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, Grace Exhibition Space, Movement Research at Judson Church, The Kitchen at the Independent Art Fair, Performer Stammtisch Berlin, Performance Space London, Month of Performance Art Berlin, OVADA-Oxford, Joyce Soho, and other venues around the world.

After obtaining her MFA from Georgia State University, Liftig exhibited work responding to the history of the South and Atlanta specifically. I'm a Groucho Marxist, exhibited in July 2012, featured Liftig attempting to climb a high barricade of reclaimed material covered in peanut butter for three hours, blindfolded and with one hand tied behind her back. She stated, "I want my audience to experience the barricade by seeing me go through it," referring to both internal struggle and political tensions.

In 2010, Liftig responded to artist Marina Abramović's performance, The Artist is Present, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with her own work titled The Anxiety of Influence. This was intended as an intervention of Abramović's work, which had the artist sitting silently at a table in the MoMA's lobby across from audience members. Here, Liftig dressed as a doppelgänger of Abramović and remained silently seated across from the artist all day, preventing other audience members from engaging with Abramović.

Writing Active since 2001, Liftig's written work includes both long and short pieces. Her written pieces have been extensively published in chapbooks and literary journals such as Now and Then, The Other Journal, Hippocampus, Kindred, and The Chattahoochee Review. Her first book, a memoir entitled Holler Rat, was published by Abrams in August 2023."Milestones" (PDF). The Review. St. Anthony Hall (Spring): 18. 2023. The book focuses on how Liftig's upbringing in Appalachian Kentucky and upper-middle-class Connecticut influenced her lifelong path to self-discovery and development as a performing artist.

Reception

Publishers Weekly described Holler Rat as a "searing debut memoir," praising Liftig's candor about class and identity, including the divide that existed between her Appalachian and Connecticut upbringings. The review said Liftig "vividly explains her struggle to reconcile her identities" and interrogates the question of nature-nurture without resorting to "cliché."

The Southern Review of Books described the memoir as "unflinching and funny," praising its portrait of a life lived across two opposing cultural landscapes. The reviewer welcomed the book for giving us a "refreshing perspective on identity in contemporary Appalachia" and added, "even during some of its darkest moments, Liftig is gut-punch funny."

An excerpt of the memoir appeared in Slate, in which Liftig recounts a childhood medical experience with the raw, intimate voice that marks the book. The piece, an excerpt from Holler Rat, allows readers to sample firsthand certain tones and themes from the memoir itself.

An academic review published through Project MUSE praised Liftig for mixing performance art and memoir: the work locates personal history within broader questions of class mobility, artistic identity, and memory. One reviewer emphasized this text’s formal experimentation and emotional transparency.

Recognition Liftig's visual work has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times Magazine, BOMB, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue Italia. She has received a Mertz Gilmore Award, the Adrian Van Sinderan Award, and the Franklin Furnace Award. She has had fellowships and residencies at Atlantic Center for the Arts, Casa Tres Patios, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, MacDowell, and Yaddo.

Exhibitions and performances Liftig's participation in contemporary art is primarily in the form of avant-garde performances and dance exhibited live and as recorded video media.

Solo exhibitions Exhibition NameDateInstitutionLocationReferencesI'm a Groucho Marxist2012Public Art Performance Intervention, Flux Projects CommissionAtlanta, GeorgiaCrisp As a Twenty2012]performance s p a c e [London, EnglandThe Human Factor2012OVADA and Roves and RoamsOxford, EnglandDeliverance (with Clifford Owens, Laura Ginn, and Jayson Munsson) 2012Atlanta Contemporary Arts CenterAtlanta, GeorgiaAll the Animals2013British Museum, AliKati ProjectsLondon, EnglandTwin High Maintenance Machines2014Panoply Performance LabBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkAll the Animals2015GemaldegalerieBerlin, GermanyAll the Animals2015Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York City, New YorkLeviathan and Lonely2018Milwaukee Institute of Art and DesignMilwaukee, Wisconsin

Performances Performance NameDateVenueLocationReferenceCentepide Series2016JACKBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkCurrent Mill, Homage to the Futurists2016GlasshouseBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkPerformancy Forum2016Panoply Performance LabBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkAnya Liftig, Gracie Devito, Samuel White2016Human ResourcesLos Angeles, CaliforniaPresent Archeology2016Undercurrent ProjectsNew York City, New YorkSteakhouse Live2016Tender Loin, ArtsAdminLondon, EnglandSALTA w/AUNTS2016Berkeley Art MuseumBerkeley, CaliforniaScreening Room or the Return of Andrea Kleine2016New York Live ArtsNew York City, New YorkAre Friends Electric?2017Vox PopuliPhiladelphia, PennsylvaniaExperiments and Disorders2017Dixon PlaceNew York City, New YorkPerformance Mix Festival2017NewDance Alliance, University SettlementNew York City, New YorkMy Dinner with Andrea (directed by Andrea Kleine)2017New York Live ArtsNew York City, New YorkNeo Domestic Festival2017GlasshouseBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkMovement Research2018Judson Memorial ChurchManhattan, New York City, New YorkRear Window2018GlasshouseBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkWithout God or Governance2018Marinaro GalleryNew York City, New YorkMetamorphosis2018Panoply Performance LabBrooklyn, New York City, New YorkPerformance is Alive2018Satellite Art FairMiami, FloridaPerformancy Forum2021Praxis Practice with PerformaistanbulSt. Louis, MO, Istanbul, TK and ZoomImagined Performance Art Storytime (collaboration with IV Castellanos)2021Parallel Performance Space OnlineOnline

References

External links Anya Liftig (official website) Anya Liftig recorded performances Healey, Dale Megan. "The Intimate Art of Active Reading." Hyperallergic. April 9, 2015. Liftig, Anya, Mohr, Matthew, and Low, Clarinda Mac in conversation with Andrea Kleine. "Looking at Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Street." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 37.3 (2015): 65-76. Liftig, Anya in conversation with Nicholas Cipolla. "Spotlight: Subverting Boundaries." Culture Tech. February 2023.