Per the exhibition text, “The Monster,” a multi-media group show at Pace Gallery, deals with the abstract creatures from early nightmares rather than the metaphorical “monsters” that haunt our adult existence. Childhood logic filtered through an adult POV often lends itself to singular images—so I was frustrated to see how many of the works curated relied on similar representational heuristics for terror and otherness. After all, what is a monster if not uncanny, living in the dusty crawl space between the unknowable and that which is all too familiar? The pieces that chilled and thrilled me most were those that juxtaposed surreal imagery with realistic presentation: take Kiki Smith’s sculpture Teeth Fountain (1995), which seems to have been fashioned from the excavated remains of some ancient beast, or Raqib Shaw’s sculpture Moon Howler IV (2013), whose miniature protagonist—a man with a rhinoceros head and a barely noticeable tongue instead of a penis—resembles a perverted version of the fantastical figurines that once occupied my nightstand. Richard Learoyd’s camera obscura photograph Fish Heart (2008) is equally breathtaking—divorced from sensory displeasure, dangling like a pendant, the organ is forever suspended between beauty and the grotesque. 

“The Monster” curated by Rober Nava
Pace Gallery
1201 S. La Brea Ave.,
Los Angeles, CA 90019
On view through March 22, 2025