Art Review - March Issue - (Page 148)

Warning : session_start : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : session_start : Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 10 REVIEWS MARTIN DURAZO MARTIN DURAZO: EMPATHY DESIGN COMPANY M A R K M O O R E G A L L E R Y, S A N T A 6 J A N U A R Y – 10 F E B R U A R Y M O N IC A Empathy Design Company #1: Protomatic Philm Phestival, Phlea Market and Showroom phor Home and Health, 2006 installation view . Courtesy Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica Martin Durazo’s latest multimedia installation furthers the artist’s investigation into the intersection of outré popculture spectacle and high-concept visual media. Empathy Design Company #1: Protomatic Philm Phestival, Phlea Market and Showroom phor Home and Health is in line with his penchant for staging elaborate participatory nightclub style environments that include elements of painting, drawing, photography, music, performance and deliberate commercial transactions, as well as encouraging outright partying among viewers. He has a knack for producing art that operates simultaneously on multiple, even antagonistic levels of aesthetics, symbolism and experience. His ‘materials’ range from found objects to the playing of rare vinyl records; graphite on paper drawings with collage to camper trailers in the parking lot; enchanting kinetic light projections to raunchy amateur pornography. The overall e ect generates a litany of dichotomies: flea market/art market; video art/amateur porn; cynicism/sophistication; voyeurism/curiosity; engagement/passivity. Viewers may be involved in the resolution and ultimate meaning of Durazo’s environments, yet they also assert their own message, as the strategies of interactivity are given flavour through the scores of individual choices regarding their content. The montage of sports, rock music, drug abuse, Catholicism, Goth music and social injustice has as much to do with Durazo’s personal life experience as lying on the couch in the gallery staring at the pretty lights while listening to Iggy and the Stooges has to do with yours. The mixed-media installation Lasarium all works 2006 is a pint-size rec room under a built loft, darkened behind curtains and containing a low sofa, a kinetic table-top light-show piece and a pair of giant speakers, inviting nostalgia, giddiness and all the feeling-goodin-spite-of-yourself that you can muster. The loft above is decorated with faux fur and a Confederate flag, where a lovely, scantily clad lady proudly shows you adult videos; you have to climb a ladder to get to her. Drug references, evidence of partying, crates of vinyl records, hot lights, religious knick-knacks, elegant design instincts and an ironic baroque superstition are all par for the course with Durazo. Sculptures such as Party Table seem at first glance to be haphazardly composed of remnants. Instead it is a formally balanced self-contained sculpture even possessing a serene kind of beauty in the soft glow from a light box. The wall piece Throwing Stars is beautiful and dramatic, a series of metal ninja stars thrown at the wall, sparkling and organic and menacing like the world’s deadliest snowflakes. Like all the drawings, photographs, sculptures and collages inside the installation, these pieces work both in and out of context. Taken as a whole, Durazo’s programme seems most interested in sending up the consumer-driven manipulation of society by encoding the same language into his art objects. His way of challenging paradigms is head-on, his satire of mindless feel-good consumerism lavishly authentic. Durazo demonstrates by example the ease with which fantasy and fiction are made into propaganda, seducing viewers into hedonistic participation with the very thing his work critiques. Shana Nys Dambrot ARTREVIEW p135-149 Reviews AR Mar07.indd 148 31/1/07 13:37:35  Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Art Review - March Issue

Manifesto
Dispatches
Consumed
Tales from the City
David Lynch
Marcel Dzama
Future Greats
Art Pilgrimage: Moscow
Mixed Media: Moving Images
Mixed Media: Photography
Mixed Media: Digital
Reviews
Book Reviews
On the Town
On the Record

Art Review - March Issue

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