Kaari Upson, Los Angeles Artist Known for Larry Project, Dies at 51

Kaari Upson, a Los Angeles-based artist whose practice encompassed painting, sculpture, video, and performance, has died at age 51. Born in San Bernardino, California, in 1970, she studied at the California Institute of the Arts. There, she discovered a fire-damaged, abandoned McMansion and the belongings of its former owner, whom she named 'Larry.' From 2005 to 2012, Upson developed the 'Larry Project,' an extensive body of work imagining the life of this 'poor man's Hugh Hefner.' The project probed themes of hypermasculinity and psychological states through diverse media, including erotic drawings and films. Her later work featured life-sized silicone mattress replicas, often hung on walls and twisted into distorted forms. White Cube founder Jay Jopling described Upson as 'a force of nature' whose art 'powerfully skewered the fallacies of the American dream.' Critic Raimar Stange, reviewing a 2019 exhibition at Kunstverein Hannover, characterized her blend of psychology, fiction, and performance as creating 'a psychotic tour de force' with emotionally charged spaces and figures.