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- 1. 132 | may/jun 2016 | ISSUE 98 AMY YAO Fried Feet 2016 Foam machine, barrel, soap and spray paint, 137.1 x 96.5 x 60.9 cm. Courtesy Various Small Fires, Los Angeles. Combining ordinary objects in strange, inspired ways, Amy Yao has the uncanny ability to address sociopolitical issues with a dash of whimsy. In Phantom Surfer (all works 2016), featured in her recent show at Los Angeless Various Small Fires, bright, metallic Easter eggs float in used cooking oil from one of the citys most popular restaurants. Yao often utilizes out-of-place, store-bought holiday d辿cor as symbols of complacency and signifiers of something gone awry. The plastic eggs are also a tongue-in-cheek nod to the culinary flourish of topping food with an egga simple trick often used by restaurants to turn a dish into a trendy commodity. The work betrays the literal greasy underbelly of the restaurant world. Yaos show, Bay of Smokes, also investigated the ever-growing gulf between the systems that guide our governments and industries and the very humanity they purport to serve, inspired by Yaos own life in Los Angeles. Confronted daily by the movement of goods at the port near her home and unchecked factories emitting toxic pollutants near her studio, she came to realize the environmental, industrial and commercial injustices endemic in American life. Discussions with friends about Chinas questionable manufacturing policies also made Yao contemplate the ease with which one can indict a faraway country for its its injustices, when similar practices occur at home. Bay of Smokes reminded viewers that sins big and small, near and far, should all be weighted equally. Save Up to 70% greeted gallery visitors with luridly hued plastic flowers sitting in a miniature shipping container emblazoned with the logo of a major Korean company. Eschewing the typical floral presentation of a crystal or ceramic vase, this vessel has no romantic notions about synthetic flowers or how they are produced. In the main gallery space, which evoked an upscale condo, a dormant yet menacing disturbance was apparent in the quirky ready- mades on display. Home Is Where You Are Happy, No. 2, a lead blanket on a chrome towel rack, wryly alludes to the cold, inhospitable creature comforts of a modern abode. Set into a hole in the wall was Intercontinental Driftwhere plastic flowers threaten to burst through their Plexiglas coveringas well as Maxi, No. 1 & 2, two central vacuum inlets smeared with a black, mold-like substance. An industrial-fume-like smell lingered throughout, courtesy of a scent machine that sat ominously in a second room. Rubber brains and femurs tossed on the floor seemed to depict the fate of those who once resided in this peculiar tableau. The overall quasi-domestic scenery formed by these installations, where each thing seemed slightly amiss, appeared to represent daily life and the many unaddressed yet accepted problems and issues that are part of it. In the gallerys center sat Doppelg辰ngers, a waist-high pile of real and plastic rice and freshwater and fake pearls. The different objects are lumped together, because they all entail murky modes of production, whether harvested by farmers or formed by machines. Within the current global economy, in which many consumer products involve more than one manufacturer, it is difficult to ensure faultlessness in all stages of processing, from beginning to finish. Furthermore, a real product may not always be better than its copy, when manufacturing, environmental concerns and labor laws are at issue. The gallerys courtyard, meanwhile, housed Twins, comprising two standard-issue placards meant for trucks carrying toxic material. Using the simple language of symbols, the placards depicting a smiling upside-down fish, a charred tree and a blackened body of waterironically looked quite charming on the wall. The exhibition ended with Fried Feet, a foam machine atop a menacing-looking black fuel drum, with a simple cat drawing spray-painted onto the barrels side, which spews innocuous, bubbling soap. At the shows opening, the courtyard resembled a foam party when gallery staff forgot to turn off the machine after some time. Attendees smiled and laughed as they frolicked through the dense foam. Though conscious of the damaging hypocrisies that pervade our bureaucracies and industrial systems, many of us continue on in blissful passivitya notion that hovered just beneath the surface of the exhibition-space-turned-pseudo-luxury-condo. Jennifer S. Li los angeles Various Small Fires Amy Yao Bay of Smokes