LOS ANGELES, CA.- OHWOW Gallery announces Aqua Regia, Luis Gispert’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, presenting a series of two-dimensional works, each comprised of quasi-asphalt slabs embedded with varied strands of gold chain. Concepts surrounding American culture and the fetishization of value have inspired the artist’s work over the years, and those interests continue to serve as the basis from which all his ideas evolve. Regardless of the visual vehicle used to interpret his acumen, Gispert’s sensibility is always palpable.

The work presented in Aqua Regia translates through visual and tactile methods. Densely black planks appear interrupted by channels of delicately metallic line in a nonobjective abstract manner. Arriving at a closer proximity, these works of expressionistic gesture disclose to the viewer: they confess not to be minimalist paintings, as Gispert’s panels reveal a particular style of line. Each piece serves as a sample of analysis, identifying marks associated directly to this artist’s hand.

With idiosyncratic conviction, Gispert posits these monolithic plates – weighty, black stratum objects, comprised of a coarse gravel-like substance, routed with gold-plated metal alloy chains, it is as if some apery regalia drifted into a simulated asphalt cosmos. This impossible moment argues physics, like counterfeit DNA unable to reproduce. Gispert’s seductive aesthetic connects us to a reality of material contradictions, providing an imitation paradigm of contemporary life.

Luis Gispert (b.1972, Jersey City, NJ) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received his MFA from Yale University in 2001. Gispert has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Art Pace, San Antonio, TX; University Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, CA; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; and the Berkeley Museum of Art, UC Berkeley, CA. His work has also been included in exhibitions at National Museum of Poznan, Poland; PS1/MoMA, Queens; Shanghai MoCA, Shanghai; Royal Academy of Art, London; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, Cambridge; Sculpture Center, New York; Contemporary Arts Center, Houston; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Gispert’s work is in the permanent collection at Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, where his work is currently on view in: America Is Hard to See.