You’re The Man Now, Dog by Matthew Flores at Cleo the Project Space is a funny exhibition. Its approach to humor is a charming study in deadpan, wry, and absurdist humor through readymade and nostalgic vehicles. Between Flores’s brand of comedy and the outdated technology utilized, therein lies a slippage of what is and can be communicated, translating into mixed results as jokes that may or may not land.
From the DVD menu of an Austin Powers movie with the titular spy’s theme song looping nonstop to a modified payphone complete with quarters on top, Flores places an archive of dated media on display, tweaking it to his own sense of zany humor. Depending on when one visits the gallery, they can find Information-As-thing (2024), a piece in progress as 43 clipboards hang on a wall, corresponding to the 43 days of the exhibition’s run. A fax machine sits adjacent on a pedestal, which Flores uses to fax a new addition that is clipped up on the wall each day. An autographed photo of Don Rickles, with an exact reproduction mirrored alongside it hangs in reverence. This work not only points to a comedy legend of the past, but seems to make a jab at Marcel Duchamp or Andy Warhol with its readymade reproduction.
Similarly, Flores’s piece EM-1.2 (internal Picture) (2024), which is intended to be a reproduction of László Moholy-Nagy’s EM-1 (Telephone Picture) (1923), is now just painter’s tape demarcating what would have been hanging on the wall, with a printed order confirmation from artisoo.com placed to the side. It is a tongue in cheek reference to Moholy-Nagy who ordered the original work’s fabrication by telephone in 1923. Like a readymade, the absence of the artwork can be interpreted as a joke played by the artist on viewers. The attention to nostalgic humor within art are playfully and skillfully intertwined.
The humor Flores uses throughout the works with their deadpan natures, beg the question of what makes something funny. The answer is subjective depending on several factors, be it generational, cultural, or other undefinable aspects of a person’s outlook. What makes You’re The Man Now, Dog so fascinating is how it almost incessantly bashes its viewers over the head with its jokes. It is the unrelenting nature of these pieces and the jokes they crack that can begin to change one’s perception of them. Similar to the phenomena of semantic satiation, the jokes become contorted after so much repetition.
I felt this most acutely when watching Robert’s Moth Joke (2024), where a video of an actor in front of a green screen impassively delivers a lengthy tale of a deeply troubled moth visiting a podiatrist—a joke originally made famous by comedian Norm Macdonald. On the surface it is morbid, with saddening details of the moth’s depression and suicidal ideation. Yet, the absurdity of its set up and punchline after multiple views, along with the subtle details of the actor’s facial expressions, grew on me. I walked in with some skepticism, bemused at the set up, but as I walked away, I was smiling, chuckling to myself at the lunacy of the joke, the circumstance of hearing it, and in considering the serious nature contemporary art typically demands. It made me question and reconsider my own perception of humor.
The brilliance of You’re The Man Now, Dog lies in the nuanced aspect of subtle punchlines. Flores may very well be playing a joke on viewers and it’s up to the audience to decide whether to laugh along with him.
