Smiling in Chaos is an exhibition that revolves around the theme of humor and the ability of artists to intertwine in their works, various forms of humor as a means to provoke laughter and fun in the face of the challenges of current times with the contribution of affirmative absurdity and laughter, potentially reducing the stress of life.
Opening Reception, Saturday April 26, 6:00 – 10:00PM
Durden and Ray
1206 Maple Ave #832, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Smiling in Chaos:
Co-curated by Gonzalo García Gaitán, Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltrán Aréchiga
April 26 – May 18, 2025
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people” - Victor Borge
Smiling in Chaos is a collaboration between Si Nos Pagan Boys, a Colombian collective of artists who infuse art with fun and humor, together with Los Angeles based artists, and one Spanish artist, who also use humor and levity in their work as a form of resistance.
Humor is a territory without passports. In this exhibition, Colombian and Los Angeles based artists explore together how laughter—from absurdity to satire, from play to irony—becomes a common language that blurs borders and questions identities. It is not a naive humor, but one that reveals the cracks of everyday life, allowing us to see beyond a circumstance, a challenge, an adversity or even a trauma of some kind.
Humor has an alchemical power. Humor can disrupt preconditioned thought patterns and introduce new possibilities. It can turn difficult moments into brilliant spectacles, transform frowns into smiles and despair into hope. Its value lies in its ability to transcend and elevate the human spirit.
Here, laughter is not an end, but a method: a way to dismantle hierarchies, to laugh at power and, above all, to rediscover ourselves in the collective. Between Colombia and Los Angeles, between memory and the present, humor is revealed as an act of freedom. Because, in the end, laughing together is also a way of resisting.
As part of the international exchange exhibitions between Durden and Ray, Los Angeles and Si Nos Pagan Boys, Bogotá, Colombia, Smiling in Chaos is an exhibition that will be presented at Durden and Ray, in Los Angeles and as a new exhibit in Bogotá, Colombia, during the Bogotá Art Fair and the Bogotá Biennial, bringing together artists from Los Angeles and Colombia.
ARTISTS: Alelandro Sánchez, Aska Irie, Boris Pérez, Carlos Beltrán Aréchiga, Carlos Blanco, Carlos Castro, Carolyn Castaño, Fernando Diyarza, Gary Cannone, Gonzalo García Gaitán, Ismael de Anda III, Javier Caraballo, Javier Vanegas, Juan José García, le frère, Olga Huyke, Snežana Saraswati Petrović, Steven Wolkoff.
As political forces tighten their grip on cultural institutions, Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE stands as both a rebellion and a celebration of fearless self-expression. Opening at Durden and Ray on March 22, 2025, this exhibition confronts state-controlled narratives, censorship, and the suppression of creative autonomy.
Drawing from the Trump administration’s intervention in the Kennedy Center and the NEA and evoking the legacy of the Nazi Party’s 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition—used to vilify and silence artists—this show reclaims the term as a symbol of resistance. Featuring a diverse group of contemporary artists, Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE challenges power structures, disrupts social taboos, and amplifies voices that refuse to conform.
Polly Borland, Joe Davidson, Tom Dunn, and Randi Matushevitz manipulate familiar gestures and shapes, distorting the human form in ways that simultaneously seduce and unsettle. Through photography, Keith Boadwee, Robert Andy Coombs, and Dakota Noot expose the private as public, questioning the norms that dictate how bodies should be seen and used. Likewise, Trulee Hall’s playful yet provocative videos and squeaky mechanisms, with their surreal imagery, blur the line between desire and taboo. Zak Smith’s ink paintings pull us into intimate, behind-the-scenes moments from porn sets and bedrooms, while Dylan Ricard’s vision of a post-Anthropocene world plays out in a close-up video of his mouth and skin, displayed on a Shibari-bound screen. Steven Wolkoff bridges past and present, drawing on historical references like Holocaust book burnings and Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ to confront the ongoing threats to artistic and intellectual freedom.
Spanning painting, sculpture, digital media, and performance, the exhibition delves into themes of gender fluidity, bodily autonomy, and sexual taboos. Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE is not just a challenge to repression—it is a reclamation of creative freedom in a world that too often demands silence.
Content Warning:
This exhibition contains nudity, depictions of sex acts, and explorations of social taboos. Some works may be provocative or challenging. Viewer discretion is advised.
Exhibition Details:
Artists: Keith Boadwee, Polly Borland, Robert Andy Coombs, Joe Davidson, Tom Dunn, Trulee Hall, Randi Matushevitz, Dakota Noot, Dylan Ricards, Zak Smith, Steven Wolkoff
Curated by: Jenny Hager, Ty Pownall, Steven Wolkoff
Durden and Ray
Address: Bendix Building, 1206 Maple Ave. #832, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Show Runs: March 22 – April 13 2025
Opening Reception: March 22, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
This Saturday February 15, 7-10 pm
Please join us for Just a “TIEZE”
Highlighting the work of Durden and Ray artist/curators
Organized by Arezoo Bharthania, Dani Dodge, and Hagop Najarian.
Soft Opening: Saturday February 15, 7-10pm
Opening Reception in conjunction with Bendix Night: Saturday February 22, 7-10 pm
Open Hours: March 1 and 8, 2025 12-5 pm
Closes: March 8
Featuring Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Arezoo Bharthania, Jorin Bossen, Gul Cagin, Sijia Chen, Joe Davidson, Dani Dodge, Vita Eruhimovitz, Jenny Hager, Regina Herod, David Leapman, Atilio Pernisco, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic, Carolyn Mason, Hagop Najarian, Ty Pownall, Max Presneill, Dylan Ricards, Stephanie Sherwood, Curtis Stage, Valerie Wilcox, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, and Steven Wolkoff.
While February may be all about the prestigious Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles for some, Durden and Ray is making its annual play on that idea with TIEZE.
TIEZE features the Durden and Ray artists and shows what working artist curators are creating in the basements, garages, and studios of the city of Angels.
Founded in 2009, Durden and Ray is made up of artist/curators who work together to create tightly curated exhibitions at their downtown Los Angeles gallery as well as in concert with artist groups and galleries around the world. The shows are organized by the members, and host international artists as part of a commitment to global exchange and alternative networks. The members share in the fiscal support of its programs to further the influence of art here and abroad. The annual TIEZE show is the only show each year dedicated to highlighting the Durden and Ray artists’ work as a group.
‘Who Held Their Heart In Their Hands, and Ate Of It’
Art at the meeting point between opposite poles.
Please join us for the Opening Reception this Saturday Jan.18, 7-10pm
Run of show: January 18– February 2, 2025
Hours: Saturdays, noon-5 p.m
Curated by Regina Herod, Emily Lucid, and Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Artists: Ciana Anita Lee, Jamison Carter, Joe Davidson, Vita Eruhimovitz, Nancy Evans, Emily Lucid & Gosia Wojas, Atilio Pernisco, Levon Riggins, Gloria Sanchez, Molly Segal, Lior Shamriz, Rae Tweed, Olga Urbanek, Sammie Veeler, Kira Xonorika
Durden and Ray is thrilled to announce “who held their heart in their hands, and ate of it”, an exhibition featuring a diverse group of artists exploring interstitial moments of paradox using a wide variety of media. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, January 11th, 2025. Additional programming includes a video screening and discussion January 18th, and a night of performances on January 25th.
“who held their heart in their hands, and ate of it” takes inspiration from philosopher and writer Georges Bataille, whose work mines the terrain between opposites – atheism and faith, terror and ecstasy, the sacred and the profane. He considers the realms of the erotic and death as sacred, because both have the power to erase the boundaries that exist in the realm of the profane. The exhibition curators believe the everyday is marked by self- interest and self-control, which turns people into separate beings with separate thoughts. In moments when we approach impossible states—when everyday habits and ways of being are swallowed up by chaos, in instances of frenzy and ecstasy, eros and death-- life and consciousness temporarily fade away to create a meeting-place of terror and joy, where bliss, suffering, horror, and divine encounters can fuse into one. This is what Bataille calls the “great paradox.”
The artists in this exhibition exuberantly and courageously delve into that paradox, embracing inherent contradictions and eschewing predictability. In their works sensual beauty meets existential terror, matter meets energy, destruction meets creation.