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Pedro Vélez: Epilepsy, Pegatina, and Adult Porn
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- Kevin Bouchard -
http://www.artlies.org/article.php?id=1477&issue=54&s=0
Seizure is the central theme of Pedro Vélez’ exhibition at Plush Gallery: epileptic seizures, seizures of property—both literal and conceptual—and the seizure of sex and empowerment from others. On the gallery’s website, Vélez offers a detailed account of his personal experience with seizure (the ailment), musings and communications, additional works and an interview with a porn star. This wide range of expression fits together very well, making the virtual exhibition feel more comprehensive than the work display in the physical gallery. Vélez’ works on display are clearly based on reproductions. They are collisions, like the synaptic chaos that characterizes the neuropathology of a seizure. Central images—often pages torn from a book or magazine and then photographed—serve as the ground upon which the artist applies grandiose drawings of words—distorted graffiti cut out and stuck onto appropriated images. This pegatina may be thought of as the vandal’s form of collage. Indeed, piracy and actual pirates recur in an ongoing storyline filled with old engravings and familiar tales. In one piece, we see an engraving of two ships blasting cannons at each other in close concert—broadside mayhem. Stuck onto each image are words that double as titles: Spew, Happiest People, SFRAPuit. Vélez’ word play is often inscrutable, but his repeated depiction of coercion is not. Calamity at sea is also evident in Exon, misspelling deliberate, which portrays not an oil spill but a photograph of a cruise ship engulfed in flames. In Gut, a ship miraculously stumbles upon survivors of a sunken vessel with text reading “Davy Jones Locker” stuck onto it. All this intrigue and swashbuckling is entertaining; what it means for the artist, however, is unclear, and given his primary role as provocateur, one is cautious about assigning specific symbolic meaning to these works. The most provocative images are Vélez’ staged photographs of young women made up to look like they have been beaten. In Lamb, a professional model looks directly into the camera with a black eye. The color photograph is composed with the care a fashion photographer would employ, portraying brutal sexuality as fashion. Thirty-two years ago, the Rolling Stones’ promotional materials for the album Black & Blue managed the same high-tone ugliness. Theirs, however, was an attempt to unsettle an audience that had been stoned a little too long, while Vélez’ images of abused igénues play to the virgin/whore dichotomy even though their titles imply Old Testament sacrifice.
The most intellectually engaging piece is debts, a collage that includes a photo of naval cadets, a nun teaching a class of adolescent girls and a Madonna. In this case, the title steers the content of the piece to contemplation of the burden of received wisdom. The primacy of institutions weighs heavy, but the open, willing faces of the boys and girls do not reveal any sense of burden. The gender segregation is in keeping with the alienation between men and women in Vélez’ other work. One is left to wonder what form debt will take and what price will be demanded. The web component of the exhibition contains an interview with a porn starlet that is noteworthy in its banality. This could be an interview with any young entrepreneur struggling to meet market demands and cope with the daily trials of work, which are, in this case, overcome by a lot of vodka. If this interview and related images are hip, that is a shame because they come across as puerile, projecting standard-issue adolescent male bravado and sexual insecurity. But to his credit, Vélez has produced a body of work that cannot be readily categorized as purely polemical. It has both comic- book appeal and skin-trade creepiness. It shoves the chaos of competing impulses in our face with no hint of the possibility of reconciliation.
Pedro Vélez at Plush
http://www.plush01.com/velez/index.html
plush presents
Pedro Vélez: Epilepsy, Pegatina, and Adult Porn
02.24 to 03.24.2007 opening reception sat. feb. 24th 6-9 pm
gallery hours by appt. only: 214.498.5423 or info@plush01.com
plush * 1222 commerce street #403 * dallas tx 75202http://www.plush01.com/velez/index.html
- Kevin Bouchard -
http://www.artlies.org/article.php?id=1477&issue=54&s=0
Seizure is the central theme of Pedro Vélez’ exhibition at Plush Gallery: epileptic seizures, seizures of property—both literal and conceptual—and the seizure of sex and empowerment from others. On the gallery’s website, Vélez offers a detailed account of his personal experience with seizure (the ailment), musings and communications, additional works and an interview with a porn star. This wide range of expression fits together very well, making the virtual exhibition feel more comprehensive than the work display in the physical gallery. Vélez’ works on display are clearly based on reproductions. They are collisions, like the synaptic chaos that characterizes the neuropathology of a seizure. Central images—often pages torn from a book or magazine and then photographed—serve as the ground upon which the artist applies grandiose drawings of words—distorted graffiti cut out and stuck onto appropriated images. This pegatina may be thought of as the vandal’s form of collage. Indeed, piracy and actual pirates recur in an ongoing storyline filled with old engravings and familiar tales. In one piece, we see an engraving of two ships blasting cannons at each other in close concert—broadside mayhem. Stuck onto each image are words that double as titles: Spew, Happiest People, SFRAPuit. Vélez’ word play is often inscrutable, but his repeated depiction of coercion is not. Calamity at sea is also evident in Exon, misspelling deliberate, which portrays not an oil spill but a photograph of a cruise ship engulfed in flames. In Gut, a ship miraculously stumbles upon survivors of a sunken vessel with text reading “Davy Jones Locker” stuck onto it. All this intrigue and swashbuckling is entertaining; what it means for the artist, however, is unclear, and given his primary role as provocateur, one is cautious about assigning specific symbolic meaning to these works. The most provocative images are Vélez’ staged photographs of young women made up to look like they have been beaten. In Lamb, a professional model looks directly into the camera with a black eye. The color photograph is composed with the care a fashion photographer would employ, portraying brutal sexuality as fashion. Thirty-two years ago, the Rolling Stones’ promotional materials for the album Black & Blue managed the same high-tone ugliness. Theirs, however, was an attempt to unsettle an audience that had been stoned a little too long, while Vélez’ images of abused igénues play to the virgin/whore dichotomy even though their titles imply Old Testament sacrifice.
The most intellectually engaging piece is debts, a collage that includes a photo of naval cadets, a nun teaching a class of adolescent girls and a Madonna. In this case, the title steers the content of the piece to contemplation of the burden of received wisdom. The primacy of institutions weighs heavy, but the open, willing faces of the boys and girls do not reveal any sense of burden. The gender segregation is in keeping with the alienation between men and women in Vélez’ other work. One is left to wonder what form debt will take and what price will be demanded. The web component of the exhibition contains an interview with a porn starlet that is noteworthy in its banality. This could be an interview with any young entrepreneur struggling to meet market demands and cope with the daily trials of work, which are, in this case, overcome by a lot of vodka. If this interview and related images are hip, that is a shame because they come across as puerile, projecting standard-issue adolescent male bravado and sexual insecurity. But to his credit, Vélez has produced a body of work that cannot be readily categorized as purely polemical. It has both comic- book appeal and skin-trade creepiness. It shoves the chaos of competing impulses in our face with no hint of the possibility of reconciliation.
Pedro Vélez at Plush
http://www.plush01.com/velez/index.html
plush presents
Pedro Vélez: Epilepsy, Pegatina, and Adult Porn
02.24 to 03.24.2007 opening reception sat. feb. 24th 6-9 pm
gallery hours by appt. only: 214.498.5423 or info@plush01.com
plush * 1222 commerce street #403 * dallas tx 75202http://www.plush01.com/velez/index.html
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