M+B is pleased to present Cannibal Valley, an exhibition of new works by Daniel Boccato and Loup Sarion, the artists’ first exhibition with the gallery and in Los Angeles. The exhibition runs from September 14 through November 9, 2019, with an opening reception on Saturday, September 14 from 6 to 8 pm.
Cannibal Valley brings together the sculptural objects of Loup Sarion and Daniel Boccato, united by the artists’ collaborative friendship and interest in abstract figurative forms.
On view in the first room are Sarion’s oversized wall-mounted tongues, made of fiberglass and coated with a mixture of resin and pigment. The tongues protrude from a fence of plywood boards that line the walls, which give a skin, an epidermis to the space. Sarion gives careful consideration to material surface and color for each tongue, offering a painterly topography of abstract patches and spots. Each one exclaims its ties to the visceral body as well as to the intimacy of language; a tongue is the thing that determines fundamental differences in taste and is the organ with which we speak, love, kiss and experience sensuality.
Also on view are new works from Daniel Boccato’s faceworks series—wall-mounted, monochromatic sculptures of caricatured expressions. The resulting shapes are made from molds using commonplace materials such as cardboard, sticky tape and tarp, and then cast in epoxy, fiberglass and resin. Their contours and lines suggest cartoon-like faces, with the surfaces bearing wrinkles and protrusions. These works appeal and call attention to one’s tendency to anthropomorphize objects and patterns, and to the dissonance that occurs when trying to register fragmented facial parts. Exploring the relationship between abstraction and figuration, they challenge the spectator's impulses to label, declare, categorize and differentiate.
Looking after the faceworks is a grouping of Boccato’s concrete cast lion sculptures. Harkening as much to the European classical tradition as to garden ornamentation, these new lionworks depict the animals as gatekeepers or divine guardians of the space, seated and gazing out at the viewer. Each lion is elevated off the floor, placed atop a ready-made element such as a dishwasher or flatscreen tv that serves as a pedestal. With their presence, the gallery space is transformed into something more indeterminate and unconventional.
Daniel Boccato (b. 1991, São Paulo, Brazil) received his BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art, New York in 2014. Boccato’s recent solo exhibitions include stone soap glory at Mister Fahrenheit, New York; stiff neck garden, Berthold Pott, Cologne; fly like an eagle, Ribot Gallery, Milan; gatekeeper, Tabacalera, Madrid; and nut, nuts, nut job, Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels. Boccato’s work is featured regularly in group exhibitions, including recent shows at Carl Kostyál, London; Musée & Jardins Van Buuren, Brussels; Art Academy of Cincinnati, OH; The Journal Gallery, New York; and White Columns, New York. Daniel Boccato lives and works in New York.
Loup Sarion (b. 1987, Toulouse, France) studied at Beaux arts de Paris (2010-2015) and The Cooper Union School of Art, New York (2013). Recent solo and duo exhibitions include: Milch in meinen augen, Kunstverein Heppenheim, Germany; Tuff Titties, Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels (with Al Freeman); Chapo, C L E A R I N G, New York (with Harold Ancart); Everybody is somebody’s secret, Berthold Pott, Cologne; Smooth like an alibi, Formatocomodo, Madrid; Langue Pendue, SpazioA, Pistoia, Italy. Recent group exhibitions include: Malmö Sessions, Sweden; Galleria Continua, Les Moulins, France; NOIRE gallery, Milan, Italy; Espace 251 Nord, Liège, Belgium. Loup Sarion lives and works in New York.