Todd Madigan Gallery is pleased to present OH IS IT, EXPERT, Galería Perdida's recent commission for the gallery. The reworking of the famed "Music Box Steps" is the centerpiece of the exhibition. The work takes as its initial inspiration the 1932 Laurel and Hardy film, The Music Box. In the film, the bumbling heroes attempt to transport a piano up a set of stairs located in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. This Sisyphean act demonstrates not only the absurdity of such an endeavor, but reveals the effortless choreography needed to do so.
The artists of this exhibition, present a similar challenge. Constructing their own set of stairs with a crate to match. Comedy permeates this sculpture as the presentation of the crate upends expectations—hoisted off the floor and turned into a wind chime. What previously rested as a heavy monument to folly is now simply a lighter one; the bumbling efforts remain as does the necessary gracefulness.
Accompanying the large sculpture are two smaller works that further infer the stupor of human activity. Invalid Feeders is constructed of two impossible mugs whose handles have been intertwined and body inscribed with a text of possession and compulsion. On the monitor, the 16mm film Categorical Instability features a patterned surface oscillating to keep a plastic cup on its surface. Watching this activity disorients the viewer, hindering for a brief moment, the physiological clarity of stability.
Galería Perdida was established in Chilchota, Michoacán in 2005. The collective currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Exhibitions include: And Per Se And, Commonwealth and Council, (2016), Routine Pleasures, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, (2016), I want to blush, f***ers, JOAN (2016) ; Zelda Zonk, Preface Gallery, Paris, (2013); Somos fabricantes de alimentos en cuero and Todo la memoria del mundo, Casa del Lago Juan José Arreola, Mexico City, (2013); Let’s Smell it Together, CUE Foundation, New York, (2013); El carne de burro no es transparente, Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles, (2012); and Matryoshka, Recess Activities, New York, (2011).