The outside of the Momentary (a contemporary art space/music venue/coffee shop/bar in Bentonville, Akansas) looks like a shoebox. The building itself is a repurposed cheese plant, and the minimalistic branding and beige walls give no indication of what could be inside.
Soon after you turn the corner from the lobby, you’re faced with ornate text welcoming you into Chicago based artist Yvette Mayorga’s solo exhibition, What a Time to Be. The exhibit radically depicts ordinary life in bubblegum pink, piped acrylic. Inspired by photos of her family posed at home, Mayorga mixes the everyday occurrences like birthday parties, laying down in one’s bedroom and visiting relatives with the style and composition of François Boucher’s French, Rococo-style paintings.
The collection includes four paintings that have a direct reference to a Boucher painting. In “The Reenactment with Nike Air Jordans, After ‘The Last Supper,’” the artist uses acrylic nails, false eyelashes gummy bears, car wrap vinyl and more to bring a scene of her nieces and nephew posing like they’re sitting in front of a vanity into a three-dimensional collage. In another room, people can walk down an Alice in Wonderland-like checkered path to a life-sized sculpture of Mayorga’s childhood bedroom with exact replicas from her old room and objects, such as a pink Disney TV to represent objects she wanted as a kid but could not afford. ’90s nostalgia music blasts from the speakers.
The pieces in the collection range from serious topics like mourning the victims at Uvalde to the absurd, like the twin pink Christmas trees striking sassy poses.
Art, particularly modern art, is often accused of being too abstract and aloof for the average viewer, and sometimes, there’s truth to that. (In fact, I’m sure someone is emailing me right now to tell me I used the phrase “modern art” incorrectly.) But Mayorga’s work taps into something that makes accessible even something as typically out of reach as Rococo art.
Many of the photos the artist took inspiration from were exchanged in the early pandemic to help her family stay connected. A recurrent theme within the exhibit is a stock photo of the world on fire. It’s rendered on phone screens within otherwise cheery, cake-like scenes as if to acknowledge the cognitive dissonance we’ve all been living with for the past couple of years: the world is ending but life also moves on.
In the Barbie-core era (though, make no mistake, Mayorga’s work and style predates the movie craze), there’s been a lot of talk about leaning into traditional feminine pink aesthetics. Is it empowerment? Is it reductive? Is it just a cash grab? With What a Time to Be, it’s inviting.
I live in a pink room. I love doing my nails. I dreamed of having a Disney branded pink TV in my room as a kid. And sometimes, I feel like I have to pretend that I don’t in order to seem professional. What a Time to Be captures the mundanity I almost never see in art, like doom scrolling in the quarantine days of the early pandemic, and cloaks them in gold decor as if to say, yes, this is worth paying attention to too.
Step into Mayorga’s dream house and see for yourself.
What’s the review crew? Click here and here.
