DOWNTOWN

An exhibition of new work by multimedia artist Daniel Martinez titled “The Human Condition” suggests that the artist sees said condition as being primitive at best. Martinez creates slightly less than life-size figures out of colored concrete, then positions them in tableaux of naked aggression to make the point that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and sometimes the dogs will eat you when they’re not even hungry. We see a prostrate figure sprawled on the ground reaching for a bunch of grapes that a second form dangles just out of reach. A savage-looking pair lumbers along with spears poised overhead in search of a victim, while a cloven-footed centaur with three smaller creatures straining against metal leashes await a command from their master.

As in all of Martinez’s work, the exhibition is infused with a strong social conscience juxtaposed with a peculiar melancholia. There’s an oddly touching quality to these grotesque mutants, possibly attributable to the fact that the poses they strike are infused with the lower order of human emotions. These creatures are governed by greed, fear and need, and though Martinez has gone to some length to disguise it, you’ll recognize the species immediately. (Abstraction Gallery, 443 S. San Pedro St., to May 31).