Art Review: Yo Fukui at David Salow Gallery
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A body grows from a tree stump. A cumulous cloud floats above a mountain. A tornado — or, maybe it’s a mushroom cloud — rises from a slate-gray boulder. Yo Fukui makes ambiguous sculptural forms that allude to elements in nature, but then he pushes them beyond straightforward organic description.
There’s a darkness to these visions, a sense of mutant evolution and decay.
For his L.A. solo debut at David Salow Gallery, the New York-based artist shows six sculptures with a science fiction edge, made from unexpected materials — especially paper pulp and bits of brightly colored felt. These materials are like something from a crafts shop or a child’s playroom, which enhances a sense of imaginative escape. But there’s no avoiding their grim sense of malformation.
The strongest work is “My Battleship in 3003,” a mountainous form in sickly green, dotted with blood-red sores, hovering just below a multicolored cloud and several inches above the floor on a puddle of cold fluorescent light. The forms, which recall the eccentric work of sculptor Victor Estrada, yield one part fetid landscape, one part fabulous spaceship.
The weakest piece is “Rain,” an anomaly composed from black ink splashed across 170 rolls of floral-printed toilet paper, precariously balanced against a wall on three chrome towel- rods. A jokey riff on traditional Japanese scroll paintings, the wall relief is so different from the show’s other pieces as to appear to have been made by an entirely different hand.
David Salow Gallery, 977 N. Hill St., Chinatown, Los Angeles, (213) 620-0240, through Aug. 15. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.davidsalowgallery.com
--Christopher Knight
Above: ‘My Battleship in 3003.’ Photo credit: David Salow Gallery
