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Dr. Lakra
Untitled, 2017

Photo: Kate MacGarry, 2017
Photo: Kate MacGarry, 2017
Photo: Kate MacGarry, 2017
Photo: Kate MacGarry, 2017
Photo: Kate MacGarry, 2017
Dr. Lakra
Collection
Atopia

Six black and white digital prints, and six sculptures made out of bronze, wood, spider, claw, plastic, and wax
Various dimensions


Dr. Lakra is a renowned Mexican tattoo artist working under the pseudonym—in a loose translation—of “Dr. Delinquent”. His installation of diverse materials conveys a cabinet of curiosity of sorts featuring larger-than-life wall prints and diverse totemic sculptures and figurines from two of his recent series. The wallpapers are made of provocative, ethnographic collages and 2-D reconfiguration while the figurines are unique assemblages merging wooden, animal, and toy materials stacked atop each other to form mini totems for the sculptures. Both contain similar visual language and subject matter, shifting between godly to adolescent from the ludic to the disposable and combining portions of figurines or images ranging from a Buddha or other religious relic to a toy Yoda figurine. 
The objects are playful and at times humorous, still they manage to evoke a powerful presence, perhaps through the difference in scale between the wheat-pasted cutouts and the authority of the material and the timeless aura and patina of the bronze sculptures. The gesture of assemblage and juxtaposition calls into question the notion of worship and the formation of beliefs and beckon us to ask about our shared truths concerning the power of idols and cultic presence. Combining them with other materials both undermines the supposed power of the sacred objects and simultaneously manages to elevate the status of the secular, creating a new hybrid figuration. Dr. Lakra has generated a new lexicon of emotive objects and images, born from the synthesis of distinct components fused together to devise objects that are simultaneously sacred and secular.
 
Related works in the collection
Dr. Lakra
Untitled (Salome), 2013
Dr. Lakra
Untitled (Pin-Up), 2007/2017
Artists
Dr. Lakra