Jonathan Stein & Carl Pascuzzi: A Slice of the Action

Carl Pascuzzi. Untitled #1 (Lindsay & Sam), 2008, 30" x 30", edition of 10 (2 artist’s proof). Brushed aluminum print. Courtesy of the artist and Hardcore Art Contemporary Space

Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, Wynwood Art District - Miami

October 11 through December 2008

By Arelys Hernández

The ”culture of the spectacle” and the “aesthetic of advertising” increasingly occupy the realm of artistic production. Since the era of Pop Art and the pictorial Hard Core of the western United States, the visual arts have been invaded by symbols of the urban marketplace, movie star and fashion iconographies, references to mass entertainment and visions of kitsch. Famous cabaret stars, sex symbols and top models frequently occupy a place that in other epochs would have corresponded to mythological representations of virgins and heroines. There is a kind of “artistic cult” which mimics behavior patterns of followers of certain religious sects or celebrity fans. It is a perspective of the creative imagination codified using the sanctified logic of television, scandals revealed in the press and the almost ceremonial nature of multimedia shows.

This thematic tendency was apparent in the exhibition curated by Rochi Llaneza, “A Slice of the action,” by the duo of Jonathan Stein and Carl Pascuzzi, which was shown at Hardcore Art Contemporary Space in October of this year. Conceived as an installation, with works by both authors, it was a dialogue of individual styles about the symbolic nature of public idols and their impact on specific sectors of society. Each artist displayed his own poetic; however, taken as a whole, the exhibition was a festive domain, a pretense for the adoration and imitation of “super figures,” and an opportunity to partake of kitsch-man taste.

Pastries, whose aromas and taste sensations sweetened the encounter between the artistic image and the spectator, had a dominant presence in the gallery. The symbols adopted by these two artists, in turn, recalled the pies of Wayne Thiebaud, one of their oeuvre’s unquestioned predecessors -along with Andy Warhol and David Lachapelle- especially in Stein’s case. Jonathan’s sculptural paintings made clear his intention to share an aesthetic feeling of extreme admiration for famous movie, pop, rock and fashion personalities. The almost objectified silhouettes (of Madonna, Beyoncé, Britney Spears…) looked like pastry models destined for the fanatic appetite, mixing both eroticism and glamour.

Pascuzzi’s prints on metal (created with brushed-aluminum print technique) articulated, in their design, imprints of classical photomontages and digital graphics; alluding to the role of crowds, reporters, mass hypnosis and acts of harassment and devotion vis-à-vis screen actors and fashion models. Artistic spaces endowed with figurative textures, kaleidoscopic appearance, centrifugal movement of images, or ornamentally-shaped compositions were used by Carl to show -deliberately, or as a kind of visual chronicle- the atmosphere of ritual, madness, desire, insanity and superficiality which usually characterizes the relationship between consumer society and its cultural myths.