At “Tintin Nina Disco,” Vivian Suter’s exhibition at Gaga & Reena Spaulings, I not only learned that changes were a part of her paintings, but that I should be ready to accommodate them. Walking through her show, I began to understand this was a peculiar trait to her work, that her installations often felt the need to prepare audiences that such a display needn’t be taken so seriously while simultaneously being a tour de force. Suter, an Argentinian-Swiss painter is known for letting the life of her untamed environment be an integral part of her paintings. Rain water, mold, animals, mud, forest leaves and other cherished debris of the life she has sought solace in for the last 30 years are part of the splendor of her work. The majority of Suter’s paintings are stacked from front to back, with a slight distance in between, resembling a tear-off calendar or a vertical version of a printmaker’s drying rack. Through her composites, which do not allow paintings to be viewed singularly, I found myself remembering things I had never directly experienced. The density of her installation isn’t a competition for attention; instead, it forms an inexplicable connection between disassembled and reassembled paintings, serving as avatars for the intimacies of her days in Guatemala. Indisputably refreshing—no prissiness, no specific restraint, no overthinking—Vivian Suter calls her paintings into constellations that record elements of the past and prolong the present in uneven qualities of time, bursts of color, and moments of scattered suspense.

Gaga & Reena Spaulings LA
6916 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90038
On view through October 28, 2023