Martin Soto Climent‘s exhibition at Michael Benevento is a meticulously orchestrated visual symphony of photos, videos and sculptures. The Mexico City based artist titled his show “Temazcal” after the type of ceremonial sudatorium that inspired this body of work. The ancient Aztec and Mayan temazcal ritual involves a small volcanic stone hut heated for therapeutic or spiritual purposes. Accordingly, Soto Climent’s installation unfolds as a loose narrative sequence insinuating spiritual progression. The show begins with Temazcal (2018), a 9-minute black-and-white slideshow projection featuring a shaman named Don Pedro. The rapid replacement of still photos evokes a dreamy sense of temporal dislocation reminiscent of the 1962 French film La Jetée. Like a photo essay, Temazcal elicits the shaman’s mysterious yet surprisingly avuncular personality alongside scenes of his larger milieu: jungle-entangled mountains, a large beetle crawling up a wall, a dog sleeping on the floor of a humble abode. In rooms beyond, a photo-collage and diminutive sculptures abstractly echo the slideshow’s contemplative mood via restrained palette, crisp outlines, precise detail and biomorphic evocations. Wrought of leather, charred wood, ripped tights, desiccated cactus, creatures’ wings and broken glass vitrines, Soto Climent’s multimedia juxtapositions recall Surrealist and Post-Minimalist sculpture. Entered through a blackened passage, the show’s final chamber is illuminated by La Puerta (2018), a hypnotic video of burning wood. Nearby, emerging from the scorched ligneous surface of Inolvidable (2018, detail above), a delicate pair of butterfly wings that quiver at the viewer’s breath is an elegant metaphor for life’s fragility.

Michael Benevento
3712 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Show runs through Mar. 17