Audio Guide - Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994

Petzel Gallery is pleased to present Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994, a solo show of works by artist, sculptor and architect Jorge Pardo. Opening February 28 and on view through April 20, this exhibition of early works marks the artist’s tenth exhibition at Petzel and his first at the gallery’s Upper East Side location.

In essence, Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994 is a non-nostalgic remembrance, appreciation, and documentation of the process of becoming an artist, featuring works imagined, created and produced during a specific period in Jorge Pardo’s life while and just after he was a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. The exhibition explores and investigates Pardo’s playful aesthetic, while offering sly anti-Duchampean commentary on what can transform everyday objects, or ready-mades—many imbued with symbolic, art historical and autobiographical references—into art. 

“Objects can speak if you change them, if you do something to them, if you interact with them,” says Pardo, who has referred to many of the works in the show as “failed propositions.” “Not necessarily in an artificial way, just in an arbitrary but functional way. For me, the idea of the function is the most interesting and it gets most interesting when it touches on the absurdity of the purity of the object.”

The results of this signature practice and assured methodology are some of the works included in Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994. On view for the first time is Drawing, 1990, a model airplane (or is it a painting?) made of Balsa wood, glue and hardware, as well as other classic Pardo “adjustments” such as Refrigerator, 1993, a refrigerator with its doors painted blue; Fuck Me Shoes, 1990; Untitled (pinhole camera owl photograph), 1988, perhaps the first owl selfie ever taken; and Shiny Tables from J. Crew (Costa Mesa)/Piece for Fandra from Fandra, 1991, a sculptural homage to a shopaholic friend’s J. Crew shirt, made of actual J. Crew display tables resembling basketball backboards.

Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994, which also features audio constructed from anecdotal conversations between Pardo and Friedrich Petzel and curator Montserrat Albores Gleason, offers a personalized and forward-thinking reconsideration of an anticipatory period in an artist’s early life and career. Many of the objects included in the Eccentric Reflexivity exhibition are parts of various private collections and have been on view previously at Tom Solomon’s Garage, Luhring Augustine Hetzler, the Terrain Gallery in San Francisco, MOCA in Los Angeles, 1301 PE Gallery, and in other locations. 

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1963, Jorge Pardo has exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Kunsthalle Basel and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and several site-specific installations including the lobby and bookstore for the Dia Center for the Arts, and his own bar, The Mountain, in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

Petzel Gallery is located on the third floor of 35 East 67th Street between Madison and Park Avenues, New York City. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 AM–6:00 PM. For press inquires, please contact Ricky Lee at ricky@petzel.com, or call (212) 680-9467.