Dorian Ulises López Macías at LaPau Gallery
Inside a constructing advanced, we hear the loud thumping of bass, which reverberates down the corridor from LaPau Gallery. It’s techno music, an engrossing combine by DJ Regal86 that serves because the sonic pulse for Hasta Que Te Conocí (Till I Met You), 2022, a brand new video set up by Dorian Ulises López Macías. This immersive, roughly hour-long piece comprises tons of of pictures and video clips from Macías’s Mexicano, 2010–, an ongoing visible archive that highlights the artist’s encounters with Indigenous and mestizo folks dwelling in Mexico at present. This assortment of pictures are inherently political, aiming to shift illustration to brown folks inside a rustic that so usually celebrates whiteness throughout mainstream media and tradition.
You get solely a second or two earlier than the photographs change. In a matter of minutes, you see pedestrians, avenue distributors, entertainers, bodybuilders, and building staff: all brown, all lovely. Some pose for his or her footage, claiming their photographic company, whereas others—principally males—are unaware of the digital camera that follows them. Macías’s pictures talk a queer gaze and reveal how homosexual males spot each other and navigate same-sex want in public house. There are additionally inside moments of homosexual intercourse and associated intimacy among the many artist, his lovers, and pals. This inside-outside interaction helps to kind the narrative of the work, biking over and over to disclose how queerness, similar to brownness, is embedded within the on a regular basis.
The set up is mesmerizing. The projection’s vertical side ratio remembers the display of a smartphone, and the infinite stream of pictures and sounds grips your consideration till it turns into nearly unendurable. However after the techno monitor fizzles out and the display fades to black, audio from Mexican pop legend Juan Gabriel enters the darkness. Gabriel’s somber phrases and melody fill the gallery, slowly regaining momentum as he lastly utters the titular phrase of his treasured Hasta Que Te Conocí. The artist syncs the following and roaring drama of the Mexican ballad, which incorporates a wonderful mariachi crescendo, to a last suite of video footage, delivering a sonic explosion and revelatory launch. Right here, Macías makes use of Gabriel’s track to reintroduce Mexico and its folks—each to himself and the world—offering an earnest and highly effective alternative to witness the sumptuous and intrinsic great thing about his nation.
— Joseph Daniel Valencia
