Aaron Young, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, 2009. [Gagosian Gallery]

Aaron Young, the so-called “Hellraiser” (Christopher Mooney, ArtReview), shakes-up the Beverley Hills neighborhood with his uniquely American brand of biker-nihilism. With a proliferation of riotous and destructive objects, including life-size wrecking balls and battered iron barricades, casually littering the gallery floor one would initially interpret this exhibit as a punks advert for hard living. Yet the sadist exterior gives way to a masochistic interior: the wrecking ball is made of glass, bound for self-destruction if it ever fulfilled its function; similarly the razor-wire sculptures have a soft core, made from delicate Murano glass, and turned on its side to become sculptural; the barricades are made of plated gold not iron, they are precious rather ruined

Goner, 2009. [Gagosian Gallery]

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