Miguel Calderón September 12 – October 17, 1998
Main Gallery

AGGRESSIVELY MEDIOCRE
MENTALLY CHALLENGED
FANTASY ISLAND
(circle one of the above)


In this, Calderón's second one-person exhibition at the gallery, Miguel expands the breadth of his self-obsessed video/film and photographic work to also include sculpture and painting. Using the talent of "local artisan" in the same way that Calderón has used the camera to create one step removed subjectivism, Calderón continues to manipulate his own image as a front for contemporary Mexican social/ cultural/ political identity.

- A SERIES OF PAINTINGS - a mix of bad taste action-movie/soap opera imagery with a semi-refined "artistic" overtone - bodyguards, jacuzzis, bikinis, action-movie mansion environments - self portraits in pseudo fantasies/nightmares. What kind of painting would someone buy to wash dirty money? Imagine a boxer who starts winning fight after fight and with his success, money rains upon him.

- SIX WATER FOUNTAINS - flowing water (the deep blue created by toilet flush deodorants) falling down rocky paths in front of little houses/palaces that lack identity - would-be ideal living spaces to the middle class family - miniature paradises – reflective of Mexican architecture. Even though we know they're fake we choose to give in and enjoy what they offer.

- CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE STYLE OF NATURAL HISTORY DIORAMAS - reflections of how we portray ourselves - little Neanderthal daily life portraiture - art becoming a diorama of a state of mind.

- A 30 FOOT WALL PROJECTION "PISS OFF" - a video that is aggressively mediocre in the sense of being angry at nothing - pissing down Mexico City's only downtown skyscraper aiming towards the way of life - himself posed both as the pisser and the pissed-on bureaucrat - a different type of visual water fountain.