If De Chirico was from LA: Emily Ludwig Shaffer at Peres Projects Milan
Something mysterious is going on in her impeccably accurate paintings, turning me into an investigator obsessed with the details.
Emily (Millennial, American) paints uncanny interiors and garden views. Sometimes, she adds a silvery human figure or two. Sexless and without a soul. Why do I think of the Silver Surfer? Specifically the one of the Fantastic Four movie?
These figures disrupt the otherwise perfect settings. Buildings and furniture are arranged in flawless compositions. Geometric accuracy wins over natural impressions. No harsh black shadows. No texture whatsoever, just meticulously smooth paint.
Inside Out
Interiors and exteriors are blurred in Emily’s works. I mean: Taste (2024) is a painting of a house underneath a dining table. Now you tell me whether the table and chair are comically large compared to the normally sized house or if the building was shrunk to fit underneath the ordinary table? The perspective is distorted to the point that I can’t tell whether it’s a chair or a bench even. I read in the press release that Emily is interested in Medieval art. No wonder these weird POVs reminded me of medieval manuscript illustrations.
With Sight (2023) I take on the position of a voyeur in front of two windows (btw: there are works that refer to all five senses in the show, hence the exhibition title). The large scale of the canvas is pulling me in. To the left, I get a radiant sunset by the sea, my view restricted by a couple of high rises. To the right, I get to spy on a couple inside their four walls. Their position and gestures (or lack thereof) are ambiguous. Are they arguing or just having a casual talk? I notice a light on in the building to the right. Who knows if I’m not being spied on as well?
Criminal Offensive Side Eye
Precisely because there isn’t much going on in these works I’ve got question marks all over my head. Let’s go back to Taste: Why are there salt and pepper on the big table but nothing else? Why aren’t they on the long dining table inside the shrunken house? Why are the lights burning but no person is in sight? Who is the table with steak and lobster even set for? And is it possibly the white boy on Kaliii’s roster feeding her pasta and lobster?
In The Neighbor’s Way (2023), two figures are walking in opposite directions even though they’re glued to a grey base as if they’re plastic toys. Where could they possibly be heading in the middle of the night? The moon is still out? And why are their homes empty? It’s as if a kid wanted to give their doll house a makeover and threw out all the chewed-on furniture.
This surreal take on exteriors, the details not adding up, the suspicious calm: It’s all heavily Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978, Italian) coded. Giorgio was a master of uncanny cityscapes. I’m thinking especially of such works as Les plaisirs du poète (1912) and The Enigma of a Day (1914). I’m also reminded of Alexander Basil’s (Gen Z, German) crime scene interiors I saw back in Berlin last year. Although both Emily and Alexander share a preference for flatness, Alexander adds an aggressive tension to his paintings while Emily’s stay cool.
Speaking of flatness, it’s another detail that adds to the uncanny nature of Emily’s works. Let’s go back to Taste one final time. The paint is just geometric blocks. Against that, sculpted glossy plates. The salt and pepper lids are actually metallic and shiny. The “worldbuilding”, if you will, isn’t consistent. And that’s when I realize: OMG is this a simulation?
Blooming Mysteries
You know what I love about Emily’s works? They tickle my synapses, encouraging me to think in new directions. Millefleurs (2023) is such a painting. A flower vase rests on a checkered rug in the middle of a lush green field in full bloom. Three things right away: For landscapes, artists usually (or historically) choose a horizontal format, aka landscape format, while the vertical format is reserved for portraits. If this is indeed a portrait, the bouquet in the vase is the center of attention. And isn’t it odd to see cut flowers in the wild? But how wild is a garden cared for by humans anyway?
The rug creates an interior space outside. And then there’s the title: Millefleurs. Millefleurs is a pattern of infinite flowers used in medieval tapestry art. The rug on the grass starts to make sense. The most famous example are probably The Unicorn Tapestries (c. 1495–1505) in New York’s Met Cloisters. Its central piece, The Unicorn in Captivity, shows a unicorn resting, surrounded by a picket fence. Just like the cut flowers in Emily’s painting, a being meant for freedom is made a trophy for human delight.
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My attention lingered on Sound (2024). I am curiously reminded of The Garden of Time, the book that inspired this year’s Met Gala. Get ready for a wild stretch: The book’s story is about two aristocrats enjoying their estate. Every time they cut one of the glass roses in their garden, they keep away the angry peasant mob approaching their home for another while. The couple realizes their time has come when only one final rose remains to cut. As the mob finally storms their garden, the peasants find nothing but destruction. The couple has turned into sculptures adorning the ruins of their once beautiful beloved home.
The book’s class critique of course went way over everyone’s head at the gala (which is a story for a different occasion). Looking at Emily’s painting, I see the raging crowd disguised in the dark rain cloud approaching (delete the cloud, crop the hills, and there you have the Windows screen saver). And even though there are still plenty of roses growing on the hedge, the silvery couple sitting underneath the tree might have already turned into stone.
In for a simulation? You can still see Emily Ludwig Shaffer: Five Ways To See until September 18, 2024, at Peres Projects Milan.
Peres Projects
Piazza Belgioioso 2
20121 Milan
Website
Instagram: @peresprojects @emmerglemmer
I don’t know about you, but I sure do want to play Sims again. Maybe even delete the ladder and trap my Sim in the pool. If you had fun with this one, leave me a comment and don’t forget to give this review a like, of course. And pls pls pls share, it means a lot to me.
See you soon!!!
Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic