Pia Camil
The Little Dog Laughed
Installation View, 2014
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
(image www.blumandpoe.com)

Pia Camil’s bright and colorful hand dyed textiles are quilted together to form large paintings, currently on view at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles. In addition to the paintings, there is a large quilted curtain, and a shelving system holding a variety of colorful geometric ceramic vessels.

According to the press release the work is, “…inspired and based on abandoned billboards found around Mexico. Camil appropriates elements, such as strips of color or fragments of a letter or number, and transforms public advertisements into intimate household items, emphasizing the dysfunctionality of a mass consumer lifestyle with a playful but critical gesture.

The title for the exhibition derives from John Fante’s novel Ask the Dust, where Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer based in Los Angeles during the Depression, publishes an insignificant short story titled The Little Dog Laughed.  The story’s publication offers Bandini a glimpse of success. Interested in the main character’s false sense of self, Camil delves into the relationship between the personal and public in a modern dystopia.“

Camil is based in Mexico City and this is her first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. It is on view until August 23, 2014.

Pia Camil
Los Angeles, 2014
Hand dyed and stitched canvas
94 1/2 x 94 1/2 inches
(image www.blumandpoe.com)

Pia Camil
Frontera, 2014
Hand dyed and stitched canvas
94 1/2 x 94 1/2 inches
(image www.blumandpoe.com)

Pia Camil
The Little Dog Laughed
Installation View, 2014
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
(image www.blumandpoe.com)

Pia Camil
Fragmento 0, 2014
Enameled and low temperature ceramic
27 5/8 x 11 3/4 x 6 inches installed
Edition of 3, 1AP
(image www.blumandpoe.com)

Pia Camil
Fragmento 6 I y 6 II
2014, Enameled low temperature ceramic
Two parts: 15 3/4 x 10 x 5 1/2 inches; 16 x 10 x 5 1/2 inches
(image www.blumandpoe.com)