We’ve all played gin rummy, or been beat at poker at some time in life, but Mark Licari, in his first exhibition at Koplin Del Rio, reconstitutes the everyday playing card as a luminous object of desire, violence, death and impermanence, wherein the drawing on each card represents a letter of the alphabet with a corresponding descriptive word. These are drawings of great wit and intelligence, and Licari knows enough not to deny us the wild card, (always the most fun) or the joker, seen here as an unshaved Wild West cowboy whose fallen seriously down on his luck. 

Koplin Del Rio Gallery
6031 W Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
Mark Licari: Vector, Accelerate to Zilch
runs through December 20, 2014