Daryoush Asgar and Elisabeth Gabriel, the Austrian collaborative duo that makes up Asgar/Gabriel, focus of the current Mark Moore Gallery exhibition “Bucolica Obscura,” cites the breadth of art history (with specific nods to Baroque and Abstraction) as influences of the large-scale oil on canvas works of their latest collection. Despite this, the dwellers of their paintings (attractive, scantily clad contemporary twenty-somethings in various states of loungey boredom) seem to speak exclusively to an MTV audience. The figures, who listlessly strum instruments, sneer, pass out, and sip from red plastic party cups are half-heartedly transported to centuries of yore with haphazardly added accessories like Marie Antoinette wigs and photorealistic bouquets that recall those from Flemish still life painting. Perhaps just for chaos’ sake, we also find strange Surreal objects like a giant elephant’s head, dogs, flames, and firearms.

The contemporary accoutrements of the works go beyond their glossy inhabitants. The massive canvases are littered with abundant neon colors showcased by drippy, graffiti-style texts that scream words like “ABYSS” or “EXODUS”, air brushy clouds of bubblegum pink, acid yellow, and tangerine, and psychedelic patterns that aim to enhance the noise of these compositions. The problem with the paintings is not their celebration of the present, but the lack of juxtaposition with the past by which they claim to be equally inspired. Labeling their disjointed narratives “postmodern” only excuses the lack of balance it would require to successfully marry the old and the new. While Asgar/Gabriel likens their work to previous Pop Art icons like Andy Warhol or Jasper Johns, their latest collection does not seem to be a joyous and ironic appreciation of Pop culture, but rather a lackluster, manufactured hodgepodge of the superficial.

For many folks, a family get-together is more of a responsibility than a choice activity of leisure. While people so often take their own family’s traditions and history for granted, artist Anthony Goicolea chooses to dig extensively into his for inspiration in his exhibition series, Related. A recent trip to Cuba connected the Atlanta-born, Pratt Institute-educated, first generation American to his cultural and familial past, the result of which drew feelings of both dislocation and nostalgia. Culver City’s Sandroni Rey Gallery showcases the third installment of the New York-based artist’s ongoing series, a collection of manipulated photography, painting, and installation conveying his subsequent associations to his Cuban roots.

Most of Related III uses found family portraits (mostly of individuals) as a basis for Goicolea to create hypothetical and fantastical moments which become manifestations of his own version of truth gleaned from the Cuba visit. The particularly outstanding diptych Supper (2008) features a fictional dinner where idealized versions of family members from all different generations are represented. Goicolea does this by painting over photographs printed on canvas (in both negative and positive) in a strict gray-scale palette that makes his subjects stark and haunting. He uses this method again in Family Geometry (2008), a family tree in negative in which the family members seem emanate with light.

Prior to this collection, Goicolea was known for his manipulated photographs, which often featured multiple versions the artist himself in the guise of a rowdy schoolboy to speak about child sexuality and gender identity. In 2007, he exhibited Almost Safe with Postmasters in NYC and The Septemberists at Sandroni Rey, illustrating his series of dense environmental self portraits. While much of the sexuality is removed in the new series, Goicolea does revert to his photographic manipulation roots, re-imagining landscapes and architectural elements from photographs he took during the trip. The prolific and inspired artist draws these works into cohesion with the aforementioned ones by keeping his stark palette and adding touches of handiwork (painting, writing). The overall sensibility is split between the warmth of family association and icy cultural isolation.