Massimo Audiello
526 West 26th Street, 5th Floor, 212-675-9082
Chelsea
May 4 - June 24, 2006
Reception: Thursday, May 4, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site
Pablo Vargas Lugo’s work has many different striking qualities. His interest in craftsmanship and detail, expressed extensively in his trademark paper cut-outs, expands in all other kinds of media such as mosaics, light boxes, video animations, large murals, and sculptures.
This range of media reflects his various cultural interests, where music, archeology, biology, anthropology and philosophy at large stay to testify a vibrant artistic mind where all kinds of stimulation find an artistic interpretation and manipulation.
In the current exhibition, a series of paper cut-out drawings entitled Finale has as their subject pages of music where the notes have been substituted with scattered rocks. The aleatory nature of the composition is granted rhythm and direction by the lines of the score, transforming it into something that begs to be read; and judging by the name of these works, it should be read as an ending.
The sculpture titled Bonampak News seems at first to be a heap of discarded newspapers blown by the breeze. Under closer inspection the newspapers reveal their writing to be ancient Mayan hieroglyphs. This piece establishes a paradoxical dialogue between the recent and the ancient, which is activated by the physical distance between the viewer and the piece. As in other works he has produced in recent years, Vargas Lugo strives here to create an image of time and the values we use to grasp it.
The wall sculpture Sunspots testifies to the ongoing interest of Vargas Lugo in natural phenomenon as a source for abstract inspiration. The conformation of stars, planets, and decorative patterns in nature such as the skins of animals and insects are often a starting point for large abstract images, a way to emphasize how art is an integral part of nature and existence itself.