LACMA

Layered with gesso and Fine Turf, this white-on-white canvas uses an X-form (an allusion to Malcolm X) to create a geomet- ric field of positive and negative space. The work references the nonobjective geometric abstractions of Kazimir Malevich, such as White on White (1918), and the sensual surfaces of Robert Ryman's monochromatic white paintings launched in the mid-1960s. Even the shape of the canvas, a simple square (championed as the supreme formal element in Malevich's theories of suprematism), exudes associative significance in Capistran's work, where in monumentalized scale it maintains the proportions of an album cover. The work draws attention to the prominence of race in two songs that helped define the punk genre: the Clash's first single, "White Riot" (1977), about London's Notting Hill race riots, and the title song from X's debut album, Los Angeles (1980), in which a woman flees the city in a fit of racial paranoia. Capistran's work explores the conceptual correspondence between seemingly dissimilar sources. In this manner, he transposes modernist aesthetic motifs with references to popular forms of music and its associated subcultures with- out ever positing one as more authentic or effective than the other. The referential layers in his work function as speculative combinations or conjectural considerations, rather than as oppositional juxtapositions. Capistran harnesses these combi- nations in an effort to highlight, and hypothetically extend, the utopian ethos and ideals (even in their failure) in the history of aesthetic and subcultural expressions and forms. — C. ONDINE CHAVOYA Juan Capistran first gained international attention with The Breaks (2000), a multi- media work that transformed the minimalist floor pieces of Carl Andre into figurative and literal dance floors. Using Andre's floor sculptures as a template, Capistran created two versions: the first was made of twenty-five individual squares of card- board, a practical, economical, and mobile surface for break dancing; the second employed the same form and materials, but wrapped the surfaces in red and blue bandannas—colors and materials significant for their gang-related connotations in the South Central neighborhood where Capistran was raised. The final and best-known work in the series involved an unannounced, guerrilla- style performance in which the artist break-danced on an Andre sculpture on display, thus further activating the implied performative space of the minimalist artwork. The performance exists in the form of photo documentation; installed in a grid formation, the sequence of twenty-five images ultimately resembles the design layout of photographs included in (once) popular how-to break dancing books. A recent body of Capistran's work also layers references to popular music onto various formal conventions associated with modernism; while the connections are less physical than in The Breaks, they remain highly suggestive. White Minority (2005) is modeled after Frank Stella's Zambezi (1959), perhaps the best known of Stella's black paintings. In contrast to the enamel luster in Zambezi, however, the material in Capistran's White Minority is Fine Turf, a finely ground, colorfast foam used in model railroading. Affixed with an acrylic base, the granules produce a densely textured, almost velvety surface. The title of Stella's Zambezi alludes not only to the African river that opens into the Indian Ocean but also to the 1956 jazz hit by Lou Busch. The source for Capistran's title is also a song—in this case, "White Minority" (1980) by L.A. punk band Black Flag. Whereas Stella composed his canvas by quartering it and then painting in the stripes to create an overall opti- cal effect and cohesion, Capistran fractures this unified integrity and separates it into four vertical panels, purposefully installed to approximate the iconic Black Flag logo (designed by artist Raymond Pettibon) that features a stylized black flag—a traditional anarchist symbol—represented as four detached bars. Similarly, Capistran's Los Angeles/White Riot (2005) references modernist painting and the history of punk rock through two of its capital cities, London and Los Angeles. 125 JUAN CAPISTRAN

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