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By now we have become accustomed to seeing galleries sell art which questions or attacks the rampant materialism of the U.S. art market. The commodity-as-art objects of Haim Steinbach and Jeff Koons are so thoroughly etched into the postmodern tradition of self-aware art-making that the whole argument has gone stale.
As if in agreement, Jorge Pardo's unceremonious, everyday objects made into art obligingly wipe all the hype and shine off his representation of everyday stuff for sale as art.
Pardo is an artist of understatement, not flash or kitsch. In an earlier show he used subtly altered common tools such as ladders or wrenches to raise ambiguous questions about the value structure of functional items when they are converted into something of strictly aesthetic worth. His objects in this exhibition all deal in some way with the notion of presentation-stripped down and looked at by itself.
There's a remnant of old rug that "frames" the gallery desk, distressed display shelves specially constructed to lean perpetually like falling dominoes, carefully framed photographs of a water-damaged ceiling and rug that tend toward raw documentary and a hard-to-find, specially constructed ceiling soffit which supports nothing and so must be appreciated for itself.
Every piece tries to hark back to sales or the motivation of presentation, although occasionally the reminder is a slick McDonald's logo or red and yellow color code stuck on for no apparent rhyme or reason.
There is, however, more than a simple representation of store pedestals and catalogue layouts intended in "Jerry," a trendy...