LOS SUPER ELEGANTES and EDUARDRO CONSUEGRA at Paul Petro Contemporary Art (980 Queen West), to August 11. 416-979-7874. Rating: NNNN
If Toronto’s summer heat has left you disappointed, Los Super Elegantes (Milena Muzquiz and Martiniano Lopez-Crozet) offer alternative sensations with glittery Latino culture.
The L.A.-based duo’s juicy disco music video, Sixteen, tells the timeless although extremely kitschy love story of a garbage man and a society girl. Los Super Elegantes successfully jet you back to a time in pop history that could be the 80s but most likely never actually existed, where dance sequences were mounted in speed boats and garbage trucks. Sixteen walks a tightrope between being fascinated by and ridiculing glamour and pop culture.
Los Super Elegantes dive into the pastiche to create moments of laughter through superior irony. Either you laugh and shake your hips or you’re out the door in two seconds.
Upstairs, California-based Colombian artist Eduardo Consuegra offers a considerably more subtle but just as rewarding aesthetic. There’s a vintage Return Of The Jedi poster, beautifully faded and crinkled, a perfectly crisp found Lamborghini poster and a sculpture made from painted banana and Coke boxes.
This show’s low-tech strategy juxtaposes seemingly arbitrary objects, emphasizing through minimalism their relation to each other. Consuegra joggles irony and weird beauty to join forces with Los Super Elegantes.
