In her deadpan paintings and animated videos, Tala Madani creates absurd scenes of fictive ritual usually centered around groups of men creating a grotesquerie populated by dichotomies. Figures simultaneously innocent and nefarious, furtive and self-aware, or comical and violent float through a hazy pastel palette that seems to shine light through the vulgar comforts of bonding. Obliquely referencing Madani’s Iranian-American nationality, her work skirts formal and political lines to expose the slithery nature of creating an image.
At Frieze Los Angeles, Madani will show The Audience, 2018, a compilation of seven short animations.
Tala Madani. The Crowd, 2018. 59 sec; Over Head Projection (the Crowd), 2018. 1:34 min; Mr. Time, 2018. 7:09 min; Spring, 2018. 1:21 min; Cats and Cat Men, 2018. 3:21 min; Plane Chaser, 2018. 42 sec; Over Head Projection (Digger), 2018. 1:02 min. All works single-channel animation, color, sound. © Tala Madani. Courtesy the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Pilar Corrias, London; and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles