MASA x Luhring Augustine Exhibition at MASA Galería, Mexico City

MASA, the formerly nomadic gallery dedicated to showcasing inventive works at the intersection of art and design, teamed up with New York City-based gallery Luhring Augustine for the third show at its permanent location in a sprawling former 19th century house. Making your way through the space is like stepping into a looking-glass realm where things are not what they seem. Familiar forms and functions are played with and subverted, morphing into whimsical configurations. In an all-white room, starkly bare save for an old fireplace, four new pieces by Brian Thoreen are centrally arranged to create a conversational space. The four chairs, made out of sheets of manila paper stacked and glued on top of each other as though a mille-feuille, play with conceptions of utility and artifice. In his own words, “these seats define their own space and are both sturdy and fragile – but while providing a place to rest they don’t offer comfort.” Throughout his practice, Thoreen uses the history and geometries of rigid modernism and forces them into playful and inherently imperfect forms and materials.

Elsewhere throughout the space are pieces by Mark Handforth, Héctor Esrawe, Ragnar Kjartansson, Salman Toor, Adeline de Monseignat, and Héctor Zamora, among others. Hanforth’s ghostly oversized burnt matchsticks in cast aluminum are both corporeal and spectral. His brightly colored aluminum tubes appear to sprout up from the floor, their forms gently curving like rising smoke. EWE Studio’s bench in pink Portuguese marble is more akin to a ceremonial altar, while Hector Esrawe’s stainless steel bench is an Art Deco-esque cascade of metal. Héctor Zamora – whose curved wall made of terracotta bricks (Lattice Detour) was installed on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2020 – outfitted terracotta blocks with steel beams and proton lights, achieving a deft fusion of the analog and the hi-tech.

On view until March 23rd, 2024.

MASA Galería

Joaquín A. Pérez 6

San Miguel Chapultepec, 11850

Mexico City

Text by Anfisa Vrubel

Images by Alejandro Ramirez and Aleph Molinari

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