For Marginal, Los Angeles-based artist/photographer Rodrigo Valenzuela presents images from three series: Weapons (2022), Barricades (2017) and Masks (2018), in addition to the video Prole (2015), and a few new pieces that can been seen in the back room from the recent series New Land (2024-25). The exhibition is conceived of and presented as an installation where the walls are painted dark gray and covered with rosewood two-by-twos that span the space both vertically and horizontally. Larger images are attached to the wooden structure, while smaller pieces are hung in the spaces in between.
It is not unusual for Valenzuela to extend what is depicted within the images out into physical space. His installations often evoke stage sets or construction sites while playing off ideas of labor and simultaneously disrupting and challenging the conventions of an unencumbered gallery display. Because Marshall Gallery is a relatively small space, this intervention is minimal yet still impactful and transformative.
Three large-scale pieces from Valenzuela’s Weapons series are the first works encountered by viewers. These enigmatic and evocative images are enlargements of table-top sculptures Valenzuela creates in his studio by combining found objects such as cutlery, hardware and other detritus. While the original objects are banal, everyday items that could have come from job sites, Valenzuela has crafted them into sci-fi scenarios where bits of machines take on the characteristics of soldiers and rogue weapons. The black-and-white photographs are enlarged and silkscreened onto a grid of factory worker time-cards that have been attached to a stretched canvas. Valenzuela’s use of the time cards ties the pieces directly to labor. Atop the images, are scrawled symbols and letters — like graffiti tags — contrasting the precision of the photographic imagery.
Valenzuela’s Weapons are presented alongside images from his Mask series. To create these photographs, Valenzuela fabricated gas masks like those worn by protestors in Chile (his homeland), cutting apart and reassembling pieces of plastic and metal containers held together by white reflective tape. The resulting flash photographs are dimly lit self-portraits shot against black backgrounds where the white tape is illuminated, somewhat akin to tribal markings. These pieces reference the ongoing struggles and world-wide protests against oppression and unsafe situations for laborers. Valenzuela’s interests in labor and the conditions facing workers are also examined in the video Prole where he films a group of Latinoworkers who have gathered to play soccer in an empty warehouse. During the video, the engagement organically shifts from interactions with a soccer ball to a discussion of labor and immigrants’ struggles. Valenzuela’s camera deftly records the transition from gaming to politics.
The disparate bodies of work selected for this exhibition metaphorically illustrate ideas of living on the margins, be it via portraiture or images of the landscape. In his most recent series titled New Land, Valenzuela makes photographs of the desert landscape and then superimposes lines and geometric forms over the images to draw attention to the arbitrary nature of borders and barriers. Throughout these related projects, Valenzuela explores ‘dystopian’ situations by creating images that are both truth and fiction. His works are autobiographical, as well as rooted in ongoing conflicts and injustices facing so many migrants. In his works, Valenzuela transforms the ordinary into something larger, be it language or power-based, cultural or personal. The pieces resonate on multiple levels and when combined as an installation they have an even greater impact.
