Smiling in Chaos at Durden And Ray

This past weekend, the Bendix Building welcomed Smiling in Chaos, presented by Durden and Ray, co-curated by Gonzalo García Gaitán, Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltrán Aréchiga. Learn more below, and enjoy this exhibition through May 18th in suite 832.

Smiling in Chaos is an exhibition that revolves around the theme of humor and the ability of artists to intertwine in their works, various forms of humor as a means to provoke laughter and fun in the face of the challenges of current times with the contribution of affirmative absurdity and laughter, potentially reducing the stress of life. It is a collaboration between Si Nos Pagan Boys, a Colombian collective of artists who infuse art with fun and humor, together with Los Angeles based artists who also use humor and levity in their work as a form of resistance.

Humor is a territory without passports. In this exhibition, Colombian and Los Angeles based artists explore together how laughter—from absurdity to satire, from play to irony—becomes a common language that blurs borders and questions identities. It is not a naive humor, but one that reveals the cracks of everyday life, allowing us to see beyond a circumstance, a challenge, an adversity or even a trauma of some kind.

Humor has an alchemical power. Humor can disrupt preconditioned thought patterns and introduce new possibilities. It can turn difficult moments into brilliant spectacles, transform frowns into smiles and despair into hope. Its value lies in its ability to transcend and elevate the human spirit.

Here, laughter is not an end, but a method: a way to dismantle hierarchies, to laugh at power and, above all, to rediscover ourselves in the collective. Between Colombia and Los Angeles, between memory and the present, humor is revealed as an act of freedom. Because, in the end, laughing together is also a way of resisting.

As part of the international exchange exhibitions between Durden and Ray, Los Angeles and Si Nos Pagan Boys, Bogotá, Colombia, Smiling in Chaos is an exhibition that is presented at Durden and Ray, in Los Angeles and as a new exhibit in Bogotá, Colombia, during the Bogotá Art Fair and the Bogotá Biennial, bringing together artists from Los Angeles and Colombia.