Aldo Chaparro: Vanishing Point

Aldo Chaparro, It Must Be Nice To Disappear, 2009, Polyptych, C-Print / Diasec, 20” x 15” (each). Courtesy FIFI Projects.

FIFI Projects - New York

By Bryan Barcena

In the post-financial meltdown, credit crisis or great recession era, the narrative of American greed and consumerism has become not only a cliché, but also an inescapable self-fulfilling prophecy. The American populace is, at this point, fully aware of its propensity to consume and the vilification that is thrust upon it by the rest of the world for doing so. There is, however, a kind of primal innocence in the process of acquiring non-essential goods; the desire for objects can be a purely sensorial inclination. Aldo Chaparro explores this attraction by using the vocabulary of its purest aesthetic, by giving us, almost literally, the polish and sheen that drives our gadget lust.

The current exhibition of Chaparro’s abstract photography, at FIFI Projects in New York, speaks in the language that the Peruvian-born artist has worked with for the past fifteen years, using light as a secondary medium. The artist is acutely aware of the influence and draw that light has on the human eye; he utilizes it not in the same way that we would say a Dan Flavin, James Turrel or Olafur Eliasson, does but more so in the way Apple, Tiffany or BMW does. The artist has many times referenced his work as a product of a temporal notion, a work deriving from science fiction, visions of a Kubrickian future to come. However, it would seem to me that this series of photographs could only exist in our current iPod age, where the mass production of items of high-design pervades our day to day and has raised the standards by which we judge objects. The ambitions of the Bauhaus have in some way come to fruition, and high-quality aesthetic design becomes available on a massive scale. Aldo Chaparro’s photographs of distressed steel produce want within its viewers; there is a seduction to the car-like, enamel-painted metal. Chaparro is indeed masterful in his ability to command the light over the ridges and folds of these photographs; at times they are brilliant and infinitely multi-faceted, while at other times, only the traces of reflected blue light capture our attention. The high gloss of the metal can be almost alien in its flawlessness. The photographs are also undoubtedly sexy, much in the same way that we are drawn to the clean lines of a sports car; the reaction is visceral and provokes of feelings of desire. The smoothness of the material in the photographs is contrasted with the state of the metal itself, crumpled and distressed as if just after an automobile collision, but this only serves to complement the refraction of light.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this series of photographs is that they represent only a wrapper, the exterior shell of something. We are drawn to these images on a purely aesthetic and base level. We assume that this kind of material is the packaging for something expensive and lust-worthy, but it is in fact only a curtain. Chaparro has in one action both established and lifted a veil; he is asking his viewer to contemplate the relationship that we have with objects and desire, creating form without function, exploiting want without need.

( September 19 - November 12, 2009)

Bryan Barcena is an independent art critic and curator based in Miami, FL .

Filed Under: Reviews