Luis Gispert: Pin Pan Pun

Rhona Hoffman Gallery - Chicago

By Jeriah Hildwine

“Pin Pan Pun” is Brooklyn-based artist Luis Gispert’s second solo exhibition at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. The title is a Cuban slang expression for a foldaway bed, carrying with it connotations of unexpected visits and familial connections. This theme of everyday physical objects with strong cultural associations runs throughout the sculptures and photographs in this exhibition.

Narrowcaster consists of a sugar cane transfixing a gilded coconut, creating a structure like a gold-headed sperm at the moment of its impact with the ground, perhaps fertilizing the earth itself. The title refers to the dissemination of information to a narrow audience rather than the general public, the antonym of “broadcast,” synonymous with “niche marketing” or “target marketing.” The noun form of the title suggests that it depicts a person or device that serves this function.

Some of Gispert’s work reads like modernist formalism.  Deflector, a sculpture made of Hydrostone and chrome automotive bug deflectors, resembles a Brancusi in distress.  Chicago viewers will be familiar with the pair of Brancusi pieces at the Art Institute, the polished brass Golden Bird and his marble White Negress II, and Deflector looks like the two were pressed together by some cyclopean hand, doubling their size and combining smooth white stone with polished metal.  Unlike Brancusi’s slick, meticulous crafting, Deflector allows its materials to show their scars.

Dookie Roll takes its title from 1980s slang referring to the braided or twisted gold chains worn by rappers of the era.  Casting flash and greenish stains suggest that the rope chain in the piece is cast bronze, its rough edges, as in Deflector, left visible.  Laid out straight along a Hydrostone base leaning against the wall, the chain tapers gradually, becoming a narwhal’s tusk, a unicorn’s horn. Similar in format is Espinazo, a similarly leaning Hydrostone beam pierced to accommodate numerous, large, gold-tone hoop earrings.  The title sheet lists them as “hood earrings,” as in Boyz n the Hood, a common colloquial term for the extravagant jewelry popular in ghetto culture.

"Pin Pan Pun," installation view. Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Gispert’s photographs depict objects that could have been presented as sculptures:  a Noguchi coffee table sandwiched between a pair of panther sculptures, a lamp surmounting an Afro-like globe of hair, and a pair of headphones with built-in hoop earrings. Each is presented as a traditional silver gelatin print, mounted on a meticulously constructed box made of a finely finished material that carries the materiality of the subject into the real space:  red or white lacquer, walnut burl or ebony wood.

With another artist’s work, these supports could easily be interpreted as luxury for its own sake, but with Gispert’s, that becomes part of the point. The same is true of the sculptures, with gold and jewelry serving as both media and subject. The work’s relationship with luxury and material culture conflates, confuses and inverts the relationship of subject to viewer. By consuming the products of Gispert’s process, whether visually or monetarily, we step through the looking glass to complete the work by becoming its subjects ourselves.

(October 26 - December 8, 2012)

Jeriah Hildwine is an artist, curator, writer, and educator based in Chicago. He exhibits his work at Linda Warren Gallery, and is a regular contributor to the Bad At Sports art blog.

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