Florencia Escudero
By Elizabeth Buhe
The fifteen fabric sculptures on view in Phygitalia demonstrate that Florencia Escudero is an exceptional artist, capable of aligning diverse materials with her rigorous conceptual aims so skillfully that sometimes it is difficult to separate the two. We see resin appliqués atop digitally-printed spandex, or a heart-shaped two-way mirror held within a foam support by cast-snakeskin in blue. We find images of stars, butterflies, outlet covers, and heavily made-up eyes; there are also “real” (though sometimes faux) shells, necklaces, snake skeletons, and much more. The iconography and materiality of Escudero’s maximalist juxtapositions confront us with the complex ways that our desires for beauty and interpersonal connection are simultaneously routed, with ever-increasing interconnection, through the digital and real-world spheres. The show is split across two venues—Rachel Uffner on the Lower East Side and Kristen Lorello (who represents Escudero) on the Upper East Side—and its title plays on the neologism phygital, referring to the blend of the physical and the digital, and talia, from the latter half of the word genitalia. These are penetrating works, and more impressive than their apt alignment of form with message is the vast intellectual terrain they traverse, from ancient pots to yesterday’s viral trend. These sculptures, at once pillowy and flayed, hold a mirror to human behavior, the systems that support it, and its convergence with the machines we have created in our own image.
