"House" Is Not a Home

Upon entering Jorge Pardo's "House," the viewer is greeted by an intriguing amalgam of art, design and architecture that crosses genres, defies definition and reveals the artist's personal response to everyday objects. Adopting the premise of a home, this major mid-career exhibition presents over 60 works including sculpture, installations (such as Untitled, 2003) and paintings, organized in vignettes that represent separate areas of a house. A refrigerator and table identify one gallery as the kitchen; beds, a chest of drawers and sexy high-heeled slippers denote a bedroom and an architectural pattern establishes another area as the garden.

Though Pardo, a Cuban-born artist who lives in Los Angeles, describes his work as sculpture, viewers may simply see a decorative tabletop, a glass globe lamp or a chair-all common forms. But the familiar compositions in this "home" do not necessarily afford reassurance or comfort. In each gallery, imposing photomurals of corresponding rooms in other houses Pardo has built (including his own Los Angeles home) and installation views of other exhibitions tend to disorient the viewer, competing for attention with the various shapes, sizes and colors of the objects on display. What should one focus on? There is no clear path through the exhibition; no clear hierarchy established between the objects and the architecture containing them. His environments lend themselves to multitasking and multiple meanings.

Pardo's exploratory work provokes thought, though he does not seem to start with an idea that he aims to transform into a physical object. He has even eliminated titles for pieces, as if to avoid limiting their meaning. But one thing is certain-by opening up the context, Pardo offers the viewer an extraordinary experience of sensory perception and simultaneous information that leads to shifting and subjective interpretations.