DOUBLE TAKE Ladan Sedighi x Rubén Ortiz Torres

Royale Projects is pleased to present Double Take: Ladan Sedighi x Rubén Ortiz Torres. Double Take is a continuing series of exhibitions that explore the aesthetic and conceptual intersections within a pair of artists, closely examining various dyads by comparing and contrasting practices through specific bodies of work.

Ladan Sedighi appropriates materials from automobile culture and commercial display signage to create works referencing hard-edge painting and Minimalist practice. Employing contemporary Western technologies like holographic films, vinyl wraps, and acrylic sheets, she expresses pleasure and excitement drawn directly from her Persian heritage. She transforms the sensuality and luxurious colors of Middle Eastern architecture, Persian rugs, and precious jewels into compositions that react to changes in space and light, stripping away history to immerse the viewer in the ecstasy of the moment. 

Rubén Ortiz Torres’ conceptual work explores historical narratives and cultural intersections influenced by anarchy, punk, Chicanx culture, and minimalism. Currently, the artist utilizes various car customization techniques, converting aluminum panels, shopping carts, and border patrol vehicles into provocative artworks. The works in this exhibition delve into the position of the monochrome in art history as well as the aesthetic of “low rider” culture, particularly prevalent in Northern Mexico and Southern California. The bright tones of pink, yellow, and gold, combined with the generous use of glitter, may unveil and nod to something beneath the “macho” surface of this automotive sub culture.

This exhibition compares and contrasts two artists who use conceptually similar materials, touching on themes of car culture and California light and space which fusing them with the aesthetics of Persian Tiles and Mexican architecture. Segidhi and Ortiz Torres are two people coming from different places at different times, filtering through these Californian ideals and arriving at works that are similar in feeling.

Ladan Sedighi (born in 1977 in Dallas, Texas) is an American-Iranian artist noted for her work in the areas of op art, geometric abstraction and perceptual phenomena. She received her Bachelor of the Arts in Graphic Design at the prestigious Tehran Fine Arts University in Tehran, Iran and her Masters degree in Fine Arts at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. In 2019 she was introduced at Royale Projects in the exhibition “If You Steal My Sunshine: California Abstraction Now”.

Widely recognized as a pacesetter of postmodernism, the work of Ortiz Torres’ (born in 1964 in Mexico City, Mexico) is in significant collections internationally including Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Institzuto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico; La Colección Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; Mexican Museum of Fine Arts, Chicago, IL; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Metropolitan Museum New York, NY; The Tate Modern, London, UK; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; The Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; The Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA and The Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.