"Daniel Lopez Show" in The Village Voice (Best in Show)

Best in Show
The Waiting Game
Recommendations by R.C. Baker
by R.C. Baker
June 20th, 2007 3:08 PM

'Daniel Lopez'

Cribbing its title from a pseudonym that the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet used to hide his thievery, this lively show of Chilean artists pushes a number of emotional buttons. The four heads of a uniformed junta painted on the wall have been replaced with convex security mirrors that reflect your every move; elsewhere, an embalmed white rat has been stretched over a microphone, perhaps a metaphor about insidious propaganda, but undoubtedly a hilariously creepy sculpture. And Iván Navarro's video, Homeless lamp, the juice sucker (2005) must not be missed. A guitar strums and a sad song in Spanish [by Nutria N.N.] commences as two young men trudge through Chelsea pushing a shopping cart fabricated from fluorescent tubes. They scrape weeds away from the bases of street lamps, unscrew access plates, and jury-rig outlets to light up their "homeless lamp." The lovely melody continues as one subtitled phrase—"Emiliano Zapata once shouted/'I want land and freedom!'/and the government laughed/as they buried him"—scrolls across a shot of the glowing cart in front of steel security gates and dumpsters; expensive cars and designer stores provide visual dissonance. Still, the cart itself sits in the gallery, a truly odd and beautiful object, reminding us that art, whatever else it may be, is the ultimate luxury good. Oh well. White Box, 525 W 26th, 212-714-2347.