LOS ANGELES — For an exhibition titled Chaos, and apparently about the cacophony of human-made things in the world, Urs Fischer’s exhibition is surprisingly restrained. Presented by Gagosian at the former Marciano Art Foundation, the show begins with a selection of objects on Lightbox tables, mostly old Salvation Army-type items, some vaguely representing different moments in time and different places (e.g., a map of Europe is next to a mini Canadian flag), but all seemingly the amassed junk of 20th-century first-world capitalism.

The tables, along with a short video on Fischer’s process, are just the prelude; the centerpiece is 500 short videos (referred to as “digital sculptures”) from the series CHAOS #1–#501, projected on three large screens, of two scanned objects intersecting and converging into one another, accompanied by live piano improvisation by Pete Drungle.

According to the press release, the videos are intended “to generate an uncanny, unsettling ‘collision of things.’” Nothing I saw in the hour or so that I spent at the show was particularly uncanny or unsettling. Most pairings were based on contrasting types (e.g., a Chinese vase and a camouflage puffer jacket), textures (e.g., a glow stick and a chocolate bar; a fish and an x-ray), or, possibly, presumed socioeconomic classes (e.g., a candelabra and a K-Mart baseball cap). The most engaging video was a dance between a hammer and nail that anthropomorphized the two enough to generate a sense of pathos. All else came across as either forced incongruity (e.g., a “Ken” doll in its packaging and a copy of Marx’s Capital) or more or less random juxtaposition.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.