Matt Wardell
The room invites you with ample seating. Images are pasted over a history of graphical expressions: a panda, Norman Fell (again and again), lewd papayas, Don Knotts (too much, but why resist?), a monkey wearing a cowboy hat, chihuahuas, more lewd papayas, eggs, eggs, eggs (what a luxury!!). In the frame of a window: a necklace of plastic feet with painted nails, a magenta scarf blowing in the wind, and below, billowing textiles- a flood of puppies and a stampede of stallions. In the corner, a sign reads: Susan Sontag Marathon Reading. Something like an ancient Roman oscilla, but with a face of Lhasa Apso and sporting budget dreadlocks fashioned from a childhood blanket, oscillates before a largely industrial backdrop with the constricted but determined lurch of the highway beneath. Beneath this kinetic collection of banality, the text of a previous visitor reads ‘Hellas’ but has been crossed out. Who is to blame? Who is erasing Hellas? The Romans? The Turks? Airbnb? Nearby, a relic no less utilitarian than Beuys’ felt, a plush blanket featuring a tiger- a guardian figure- the axis mundi for the installation. Beneath lies a jetty of broken glass and assorted debris with two wigs crowning the twin peaks of the accumulation. A strip of laminated text reads: La adventura puede ser mas grande. Plastic hands hang. A long thin piece of fabric with the spots of a giraffe blows in the wind. Additional textiles with various patterns of saturated colors lead to a pair of hanging prosthetic buttocks. What else could be more desirable in our present age? The buttocks, the feet, the hands, and the rest: murmurs of the cult Asclepius and the ex-votos still used by present-day practitioners? Beyond the buttocks, a cluster of objects: fake fruit, a tortilla warmer, a potholder that reads ‘Yo [heart] Chile’, a pair of sneakers (often a sign of where to acquire illicit pharmaceuticals, a charm with a tiny rubber foot. A yellow dustpan with the face of a cartoon duck hangs. In this window frame, a textile is printed with a sea of flowers which transform into three-dimensional plastic flowers intermingling with the ruins which came before them. In the shadows of the interior, a fuzzy rainbow duster hangs. A doorway is obscured by a novelty beach blanket with an (sickeningly) adorable cat and the text: Venice Beach, CA. Ideally this functions as a warning, as behind this threshold is the foulest shithouse of pigeons, which inspired several vigorous episodes of dry heaves (at least by the author). Beware!
