Juliana Paciulli
at Greene Exhibitions

Juliana Paciulli, Uh-Huh (Dolphin) (2015). Archival pigment print in artist’s frame, 28 x 39 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Exhibitions.

‘LET’S MAKE A SUBCULTURE OF SUB-PAR EXCELLENCE AND TOTALLY COMMIT TO IT’ This gnomic exhortation flashes up, one word at a time, on an iPad resting on the chrome frame of a tacky coffee table, its glass broken and strewn across a brushed cream carpet. Certain words—‘subculture’, ‘sub-par’—are in their own exuberant fonts, but mainly the message appears in hand-penned all-caps.

It is unclear who is speaking these words, and with whom I should take issue if I wished to disagree (I think I do). Does the voice belong to Juliana Paciulli, the artist responsible for the installation in which they feature (Let’s Make a Subculture…………. [2016])? Or is the protagonist the female figure whose hands appear in the photographs in Paciulli’s exhibition Uh-Huh? These two characters may be one and the same, but something about the consciously airless contrivance of Paciulli’s staged studio photography indicates that we are likely dealing with a surrogate: a generic archetype of young womanhood.

The photographs, in fact, are a good deal more compelling than the installation, and slightly less ambiguous. Against an off-white background, the hands perform suggestive actions with suggestive objects. In Uh-Huh (Dolphin) (2015), they grasp the handles of an inflatable dolphin whose head is slathered in shaving foam; in Uh-Huh (Conch Shell) (2016) they wave a white handkerchief (adieu or surrender?) over a model train-track on which rests a fleshy pink shell dripping white sand. If phallic projectiles, orifices and ejaculate spring—amusingly—to mind, it takes longer to deduce where Paciulli is hoping to lead her viewers. Her protagonist-model seems sometimes complicit and sometimes deflationary in relation to the gendered situations her hands find themselves in. Such, perhaps, is the indecision of youth.

UH-HUH runs January 16-February 27, 2016 at Greene Exhibitions (1639 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035)

Juliana Paciulli, Uh-Huh (Conch Shell) (2016). Archival pigment print in artist’s frame, 15.5 x 20.5 inches each (diptych) . Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Exhibitions.

Juliana Paciulli, Uh-Huh (Basketball) (2015). Archival pigment print in artist’s frame, 16 x 22.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Exhibitions.

Juliana Paciulli, Uh-Huh (Witch Hat), (2015). Archival pigment print in artist’s frame, 28 x 39 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Exhibitions.

Juliana Paciulli, Uh-Huh (Skeleton) (2015). Archival pigment print in artist’s frame, 28 x 39 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Exhibitions.

Juliana Paciulli, Let’s Make a Subculture………….(2016). Looping video on iPad, broken glass, coffee table, carpet. Dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Exhibitions.

Jonathan Griffin is an art critic and writer based in Los Angeles. He writes for Frieze, The New York Times, the Financial Times, ArtReview, Apollo, and others.

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