Frieze LA

For Frieze LA 2023, Bel Ami presents an exhibition by Milano Chow. In her neo-noir scenes, Chow engages the visual languages of architecture and fashion to investigate themes of voyeurism, alienation, isolation, and desire. In a new series of drawings and three-dimensional works in graphite, photo transfer, and collage, Chow creates architectural renderings that are subtly uncanny–almost habitable, but not quite. Her ornate building facades are punctuated by cryptic window displays and elusive female figures. Drawing upon a wide range of references, from books on Classical Roman motifs to reality TV, Chow sources the women inhabiting her drawings from fashion magazines and catalogs, often selecting them for their aura of artificiality or theatricality. The women are surreal, seductive, or disturbingly still. Dressed in disparate styles, they are statuesque–simultaneously assertive and aloof–reflecting the facades of the buildings they occupy. Chow’s works enact a voyeuristic surveillance of urban exteriors. Yet, access is not guaranteed; in these nocturnal settings, businesses are closed and figures are partially hidden by protective window frames, screens, and blinds. Here Chow both reifies and challenges the idea of woman-as-mystery. In addition to the wall works, the exhibition features two diorama sculptures made of paper, graphite, vinyl paint, ink, and book binding materials, which fold up with all of their parts and pieces. The exhibition reveals how feminine accouterments, like the decorative elements of a building, can function as an entrained symbology, either flattening experience or enriching it. The embellishments draw us in, and at the same time prompt us to question preconceived notions about what’s behind the curtain.

Milano Chow (b. 1987, Los Angeles) lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BA from Barnard College in 2009 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. She has held solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield; Adams and Ollman, Portland; Chapter NY, New York; Galleria Acappella, Naples; and Mary Mary, Glasgow. Recent group exhibitions include Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch, New York and Los Angeles (2022); The Interior, Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2021); Therein / Thereof / Thereto, STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo (2021); Whitney Biennial 2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She is a 2018 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.