Carmen Menza, “Resist Much, Obey Little,” 2024, neon, transformer, 8 x 38 x 2 ¼ inches. Courtesy of Carmen Menza
Ro2 Art in Dallas is currently hosting two solo exhibitions, Carmen Menza’s Patterns of Disturbance and Bernardo Vallarino’s Size Matters – The Golden Rule. The two exhibitions divide the gallery in half in a stark dichotomy, yet they work in dialogue with one another, each criticizing larger issues within the context of our current social and political climate. The shows opened just days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, taking on new meanings with the victory of Donald Trump.
The first artwork you see when you enter Carmen Menza’s Patterns of Disturbance is a neon sign that reads “Resist Much, Obey Little.” The phrase comes from Walt Whitman’s poem Inscriptions to the States from his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass. The full three-sentence poem reads “Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.” This plea directly to the American people, warning them against surrendering their allegiance to authoritarianism, immediately sets the tone for her exhibition.
Installation view of Carmen Menza: “Patterns of Disturbance.” Courtesy of Carmen Menza and Ro2 Art Gallery. Photo: Carmen Menza
Menza is an interdisciplinary, light-based artist, so her exhibition culminated in a dreamy array of soft neons. Luminescent lilac, tangerine, fuschia, and golden hues dance across the walls and floor, intersecting and overlapping in a hazy montage of colors and shapes as you walk around the space.
Dispersed around the gallery are pedestals holding various objects, like hand-cut and ornately soldered glass boxes with inscriptions inside. Transparent prisms constructed from LED light, dichroic film, and acrylics create layers within layers inside each structure, fluctuating in color depending on the lighting within the space they’re displayed. Mounted on the walls are ribbed acrylic boxes that use iridescent film rather than LEDs, creating gentle color gradients. Our perception of light, color, and form within Menza’s work is never concrete; her sculptures are illusionary, shifting as you wander around the gallery.
Installation view of “Mirror Mirror and Hope (backwards).” Courtesy of Carmen Menza and Ro2 Art Gallery
Installation view of Carmen Menza: “Patterns of Disturbance.” Courtesy of Carmen Menza and Ro2 Art Gallery
Menza often pairs text-based works and light-based works together, their combination and interaction with each other are essential to her visual language. In the middle of the gallery, two walls face each other; mounted on one side is a circular mirror with dichroic film covering the surface and blurring the reflection slightly. On the wall across from the mirror is a neon sign which reads “Hope” backward. It is only through the reflection in the mirror that the word is spelled out correctly. “Hope is present but not unless you’re in the environment with it,” Menza tells me. “It is not a passive thing.”
Hope is a recurring theme throughout Patterns of Disturbance. Even though the rights of girls and women around the world continue to be redacted — Menza cites the Dobbs decision and SB 8 bill (the Texas Heartbeat Act) as key moments that the war being waged on women’s rights intensified — hope is a crucial element in resistance.
Carmen Menza, “Larry,” 2024, ribbed acrylic, acrylics, dichroic film, LED light, transformer. 14 ¼ x 16 x 16 inches. Courtesy of Carmen Menza and Ro2 Art Gallery. Photo: Carmen Menza
The entire time that I walked around Menza’s exhibition, an eerie melody faintly followed me. The tune is all too familiar — “The Star-Spangled Banner,” our National Anthem, but the song is distorted, slowed down, now holding an ominous air. As a musician herself — holding a BFA in jazz guitar performance — it is not uncommon for Menza to incorporate self-composed audio elements into her work. This sample, however, was arranged by her husband, Mark Menza. Just as the future of our nation and women’s rights remains uncertain, the unsteady tune communicates this precise disquietude.
Patterns of Disturbance is an exhibition about light, perception, beauty, and resistance — optics and reflection. Menza’s fabrication and manipulation of material transforms each piece into something phantasmal and ephemeral.
Bernardo Vallarino, “Size Matters,” 2024, found objects mounted in hand-made shadow boxes backed with gold leaf, and matted with suede-patterned leather. Courtesy of Bernardo Vallarino and Ro2 Art Gallery. Photo: Bernardo Vallarino
Across the gallery from the soft glow of Menza’s show is the masculine black and gold palette of Bernardo Vallarino’s Size Matters – The Golden Rule.
Bernardo Vallarino is a Colombian-American mixed-media artist whose practice focuses on geopolitical issues of violence and highlighting the hypocrisy rampant in society today. In Size Matters – The Golden Rule, Vallarino dissects the contemporary significance of firearms and nuclear weapons through the lens of fetishism, both in how the weapons are worshiped and sexualized.
Bernardo Vallarino, “We’re all Fucked. Glory to the Whole Atomic Powers,” 2024, hand-sewn flags with gold leaf design stretched on hand-made wood door frames. Courtesy of Bernardo Vallarino and Ro2 Art Gallery. Photo: Bernardo Vallarino
The centerpiece of his exhibition is a large circular installation that visitors can walk into through an opening. At first, the sheets of fabric appear to be solid black, but as you get closer the subtle black-on-black designs within the fabric become apparent, revealing each piece to be a country’s flag. The flags represent the nine countries that currently have nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. Each flag is embellished with gold leaf designs of ants, which “serves as a metaphorical middle ground, representing both destruction and unity, cooperation and decay.” Each flag also includes a glory hole that resembles a radioactive icon. The anonymity of the glory hole serves to parallel the detachment and cognitive dissonance that often accompanies nuclear war crimes.
Bernardo Vallarino, “We’re all Fucked. Glory to the Whole Atomic Powers,” detail, 2024, hand-sewn flags with gold leaf design stretched on hand-made wood door frames. Courtesy of Bernardo Vallarino and Ro2 Art Gallery. Photo: Bernardo Vallarino
Smaller objects are hung on the walls and placed on pedestals around the installation. Gun replicas and Nerf guns are painted black and gold and mounted in shadow boxes. A large AK-47 rifle replica and an artillery shell are embellished with gold leaf and intricate design inlays; each is secured to the pedestal using a dildo suction base-inspired foot. Another series of Ballistic Dildos showcase phallic objects that have the body of a dildo with the tip of an artillery shell.
Vallarino’s fusion of dildos and firearms references the convoluted notions of violence, gun culture, toxic masculinity, and obsession. The phallic weapon is a great tool to explore power dynamics on both a local and global scale. The entire show is represented in black and gold, a color combination that communicates luxury and power. The result is an exhibition so striking that it demands attention and rumination; after all, our society is nothing more than a reflection of us all.
Bernardo Vallarino, “Golden Idol,” 2024, gold-leafed artillery shell with metal design inlays and a dildo suction base-inspired foot. Courtesy of Bernardo Vallarino and Ro2 Art Gallery. Photo: Bernardo Vallarino
I love the visual juxtaposition between the two exhibitions: Menza’s work is spectral with its fuzzy pastels, while Vallarino’s is bold and imposing. The tension between the hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine aesthetics makes for an enticing conversation about the political dynamics surrounding gender and power. In a sense, they are yin and yang.
Carmen Menza: Patterns of Disturbance and Bernardo Vallarino: Size Matters – The Golden Rule are on view at Ro2 Art Gallery through January 11, 2025.
Emma S. Ahmad is an art historian and writer based in Dallas, TX.
2 comments
Thank you, Emma, for your insightful and eloquent review of Carmen Menza’s ‘Patterns of Disturbance’ and Bernardo Vallarino’s ‘Size Matters – The Golden’ Rule at Ro2 Art. Your thoughtful analysis captures the essence and intention behind these exhibitions, and we’re thrilled to see such engagement with the themes presented. We appreciate Glasstire’s continued support in highlighting the dynamic art scene in Dallas.
Emma–you articulated the unexpected juxtaposition and resulting dialogue between the two artists’ work so well. One would not expect such disparate work to create powerful synergy and the timeliness of the socio-political challenges we face as a culture.