A regular furrower of art-world brows, Jorge Pardo likes to pull
confusing stunts. On the face of it, he's an incredibly gifted
designer of products and interiors - imagine an Almodovar computer
game and you're somewhere close - but then again his work (colourful
lamps, lighting, furniture and other sculptural objects) keeps turning
up in galleries. In 1998 he was part-funded by the Los Angeles Museum
of Contemporary Art to build himself a house, which was initially used
as a satellite gallery before becoming his permanent home.
His latest project runs along similar lines, being the refurbishment of a
dilapidated building in Mérida, the capital of Mexico's Yucatan
province. What this ongoing work has lead to is his current
installation at the Haunch of Venison Gallery in Mayfair. The space,
itself a gutted Georgian Townhouse, has been neatly installed with
photo murals of the Merida building, along with examples of lighting
(delicate, frosty globes hung at varying heights around the space),
tile work (suitably loud and kaleidoscopic) and a variety of other
artefacts from the project. The most striking of these are undeniably
the giant masks that line the walls, painstakingly constructed (by
hand, I am assured) out of hundreds of cardboard triangles, and
equally reminiscent of precious stones as they are of pixellated
villains from Doom. It's as if the mayan relics that they are inspired
by have been digitally expanded to fit into a garishly isometric,
rasterised version of modern life, an approach that typifies the
Merida project in that it highlights the difficulty of remaining in
touch with Yucatan's cultural heritage, at the same time as
celebrating its exhuberance.
Tonight is a particularly special occasion because, although the
exhibition has been open for two weeks, it is the first time Pardo has
come to London to see it, and his arrival coincides with the launch of
a major monograph of his work published by London's Phaidon Press. The
book follows a format established by other titles in the company's
Contemporary Artists series, containing an interview, survey of works
and hundreds of lavishly reproduced images as well as several general
texts selected by the artist himself to be read alongside the more
focused analysis. This may not quite stop the critics pondering
whether he's an artist or a designer, but for the moment Pardo seems
satisfied, and the immediate colourful punch of the installation has
made the conundrum seem irrelevant.
Mike Kruger
