Los Grumildos at Here, and Black Acid Co-op at Deitch Gallery.
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/visual-art/soho-to-hell-and-back-twice/738/
To be trapped in Soho in a hellish, multi-room environment that has been, or is, inhabited by mutants or delinquents—this might occur once in a blue moon, but twice in one week? Yup. (And I’m not talkin’ about Topshop.) Once at Here Arts Center, where Los Grumildos was on view last week, and again at Deitch Projects’ Wooster Street space, where Jonah Freeman/Justin Lowe’s Black Acid Co-op is up through August 15.
“Grotesque. Charming. Sordid. Tiny.,” is how the installation by Peruvian artist Ety Fefer is concisely described on the postcard for Los Grumildos, part of Here’s puppetry program. Foot-tall puppets—hybrids of humans and crustaceans, with lobster claws, scorpion tails, and extra limbs—in individual terrariums “play” various instruments, their herky-jerky movements driven by small motors. In the back room sits a four foot-tall tavern/boarding house, with each room of the several-story house elaborately detailed. A chanteuse entertains the saloon crowd on the ground floor; her pink boa is one of the few exceptions to the otherwise naked, basically anatomically correct crew. Upstairs, a woman with long hair saws on a violin. A man in the next room pumps his knee in rhythm. Fog added to the mysterious atmosphere in the darkly lit environment.
