Topico con Viento 1996 Topico con Lluvia 1996 Topico Mayor, 1996

jordi colomer at galeria carles taché, by Kim Bradley Colomer's new works recall the fresh vitality of his earliest solo shows (such as his 1990 exhibition at Juana de Aizpuru in Madrid), when the now 36-year-old Catalan artist first attracted attention. At the time, he used two-by-fours to make large, wall-mounted sculptures with Duchampian overtones. In this exhibition, Colomer playfully questions the notion of perfection with sculptural devices that expose the underpinnings of a theory or a constructed image. For example, the exhibition's title piece,Perfect, features cast-iron dice that are situated on the wall according to Le Corbusier's modular measuring system. Aside from offering an ironic reference to games of chance, the irregularly-shaped dice--obviously fashioned by hand--hint at the inherently flawed logic of Corbu's supposedly ideal (and idealized) system, based as it was upon the "perfect" human body. Three large-format photographs on view (Major Cliché, Cliché with Rain, Cliché with Wind) also serve to uncover well-known "lies." Colomer uses basic cinematic techniques and rudimentary elements (such as painted wood blocks) to create images which evoke urban landscapes. These seductive simulations suggest narratives, even though they are clearly kitchen-made productions. Colomer is not interested in artifice for its own sake, even if he pretends to be the Wizard of Oz who slyly invites us into his lair. He achieves a delicate balance between creating a fiction, exposing its mechanisms and asking us why we insist on encountering a narrative never-the-less. KIM BRADLEY is an American art critic living in Barcelona.