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Exhibition

Studio Debris: A Bit of Everything, A Lot of Nothing

18 Jul-16 Aug 2025
PV 17 Jul 2025, 6-8pm

Maximillian William
London W1W 8HJ

Overview

Maximillian William is pleased to announce Coco Capitán’s exhibition 'Studio Debris: A Bit of Everything, A Lot of Nothing'. Featuring a range of work that the artist has made over the past few years, including large-scale photographs, polaroids, unframed prints, paintings, as well as pithy phrases and notes that she has written on hotel stationery, 'Studio Debris' opens the door to the restless abundance of the artist’s creative processes. 

'Studio Debris' will present a full range of the artist’s photographic work, including the large-scale 'Erik Rolls a Cigarette' (2017). In an otherwise everyday room, a young man lounges in his underwear on a bright blue carpet, staring directly at the viewer as he rolls a cigarette. At over two metres wide, the scale of the photograph and the position of the figure serve to echo depictions of women in art history, from mythological figures such as Titian’s 'Venus of Urbino' (1538) to Manet’s 'Olympia' (1863). Capitán inverts convention, presenting us with a male figure, recumbent and at ease as his gaze meets the viewer’s. In contrast to this substantial tableau, across the room will be steel plates festooned with a variety of prints, including polaroids, loose and unframed, reflecting a wide variety of Capitán’s photographic oeuvre, from magazine work and editorial portraits to pictures from the artist’s frequent travels to Japan. The array of photographs serves to animate the breadth of the artist’s curiosity and vision, from portraiture to landscape, showcasing her eye for both composition and colour. The colour blue is especially important for Capitán, visible in many of her photographs, from a series of manipulated Polaroids to the dominant hue in 'Erik Rolls a Cigarette'. 

Elsewhere in the exhibition, a group of Capitán’s text-paintings, including one that features the title of the exhibition, 'A Bit of Everything, A Lot of Nothing' (2025), shows another facet of her practice. 'Imagination Investments (Further than Money Will Ever Take You)' (2025), with a Pegasus in flight on a dark background, seems to present a sardonic take on the promises of capitalism. Both paintings animate a dialogue between image and language, materiality and idea, longing and abundance. This dialogue continues with smaller works on hotel stationery such 'The Present for the Future' (2025). With their playful epigrammatic phrases, the text works offer existential asides, as if the artist is attempting to reassure herself – and the viewer – with snippets of self-help. Finally, a small multi-media installation combines a photograph, a found object and a written work. The photograph, 'A Gladiator’s Tear' (2024), depicts a large teardrop dripping across the steely cheek of a mask. The text work, 'The Dealer’s Mask' (2024), reveals the artist’s sense of self-doubt, while also alluding to the masks one might need to wear to keep up appearances – whether artist, dealer or gallery-goer.

 

Press

Coco Capitán press release
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