Alejandro Magallanes: Picabia was Martinez

Flipping on its head the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words, the artist Alejandro Magallanes considers words to generate inspiration and images. A graphic designer, artist, and poet working adeptly across a variety of aesthetics, techniques, and mediums, Magallanes’s debut solo exhibition at Le Laboratoire features a suite of works on paper, sculptures, fossil books, and multiple formats of painting. Easily described as direct and spontaneous, the artist’s works are usually infused with a playful attitude—including those on view like Tiny white canvas, which depicts a small white section alluding to a canvas painted against a black backdrop, with the words “tiny white canvas. It will be painted soon.” underneath in the artist’s signature scrawl.