Eli Langer

LOS SUPER ELEGANTES

EDUARDO CONSUEGRA

Group Show

July 13 - August 11

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Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present these three Los
Angeles-based artists.

While in Los Angeles in February for the opening of "Wack! Art and
the Feminist Movement"
at the Los Angeles MOCA, accompanying our own Suzy Lake (whose early
works from 1972-
73 were on loan to the show from the A.G.O. and the National
Gallery), I came across the
idea for these three shows.

It is with great enthusiasm that we present the latest painting,
sculpture and work on paper
by Toronto-born Eli Langer.  He has been living in Los Angeles for
nearly three years now
after an extended sojourn in New Orleans.  It was this itinerant,
migrant nature that led me
to place him in a two-person show in 2005, "The Truth About Los
Angeles" with another
L.A.-based migrant artist, David Hockney.  Eli's work inaugurated one
of our spaces when
the gallery moved to its current location at 980 Queen St West. This
is his third exibition
with the gallery.

I had seen an MFA exhibition by Eduardo Consuegra at the Art Centre
College of Design
in Pasadena.  He's originally from Bogota, Colombia where he received
his BFA.  He will
be graduating in 2008.  I was instantly drawn to the work and its
properties of found posters,
coloured gels, sculpture, the play of reflection on the various
surfaces and the juxtaposition
of cultural and pop references.

One evening at the Daniel Hug Gallery in L.A.'s Chinatown gallery
district I saw a performance
piece by Los Super Elegantes and a screening of one of their videos,
"Nothing Really Matters".
Here's some text from the web site of their London (England) gallery,
Blow de la Barra:

"Los Super Elegantes is the collaborative team of Milena Muzquiz and
Martiniano Lopez-Crozet.
Together they perform onstage at concerts and art events; record
albums and produce music
videos; make photographs and t-shirts, and write and star in their
own plays. In cathartic and
turbulent performances, Lopez Crozet and Muzquiz take on endless
roles, from rock stars and
television soap opera characters, to writers and onstage
provocateurs. Their work blurs the line
between art and music, high and pop culture, punk and mariachi,
failure and success, real life
and pop stardom. The final product, a pastiche of allusions to
contemporary culture, portrays
and deconstructs the variety of styles and fashions available in our
media-saturated era.

"Milena Muzquiz (Tijuana, 1974) and Martiniano Lopez-Crozet
(Argentina, 1968) formed Los
Super Elegantes in San Francisco in 1995; they live and work in Los
Angeles. Their first musical
album "Channelizing Paradise" was released in 2002. Los Super
Elegantes were featured in the
2004 Whitney Biennial, in the same year they created the highly
successful Slow Dance Club
as part of the Frieze Art Fair 2004 Art Project Commissions. Los
Super Elegantes work has been
reviewed in numerous publications including ArtForum, Index, Purple,
Interview and many
others. Milena and Martiniano are currently working on their new
album and in the production
of their first motion picture: "Los Super Elegantes An Autobiography."