Aaron Douglas Estrada’s “Please Be Advised”, his second solo show up at Guerrero Gallery Los Angeles centers around sculpture made from materials found in—or common to—the neighborhoods in which he spends time.
Known for his sculptures of barbed wire and chain link, several sculptures on view hold to this same motif including a hanging piece made of one long chain linked metal line that ends with the chain looped back on itself to create a circle. Within the circle a spider-web has been woven to form a pentagram out of barbed wire.
The ubiquitous smiling sun wall sculpture that adorns many Los Angeles gardens has been reimagined using barbed wire outlining the sun’s rays with a sun face constructed out of a hubcap, the center containing a digital screen reflecting the viewers image back at them.
Much of the exhibition focuses on plastics. Floating drawers inset into the gallery’s drywall are presented overflowing with plastic shopping bags. Several wall installations presented in grids or grid-like treatments are collages crafted out of logo/screen printed grocery or lentil bags, the kind that would hold grains or beans, cut, shaped, and shellacked to read as graphic fetish-finish paintings, handbags crafted from the same plastic grain bags hang on barbed wire wrapped retail store hooks, a floor covered in a checkerboard grid of stick/tacky tape is reminiscent of flypaper or rat traps captures viewers’ footprints as they walk through the gallery, and several wooden crates with loose bric-a-brac sitting on top are fitted with subwoofers to make said bric-a-brac dance and move.
The show effectively forms a window into the sight, sound and texture of a version Los Angeles where all of these materials would be second nature—and that is the strongest argument for this exhibition. The whole is stronger than any individual piece and taken together could very easily translate into a museum show.
Since moving from San Francisco and opening up a space in Glassell Park, GGLA has held several unconventional exhibitions focusing on local Latino artists. Estrada’s is the strongest by far.
Image: Staff