Os Gemeos at Deitch Projects

The identical twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo--"Os Gemeos" means "the twins" in Portuguese--made their name in international graffiti circles painting tags and yellow-skinned figures on walls and buildings in their native Sao Paulo. As spray paint was an expensive and rare commodity locally, they used it only sparingly, for details and lettering, relying mainly on latex house paint to develop their eccentric style.

In their New York debut show, the twins transformed the three rooms at Deitch Projects into a circus of color. The gallery's entrance was hung with brightly decorated shoe-shine boxes and handmade wooden constructions reminiscent of musical instruments or children's playthings. In the next room, nine 71-by-55-inch acrylic-on-canvas paintings depicted characters from Os Gemeos's world. Each painting was equipped with its own soundtrack, provided by portable CD players with earphones positioned next to the work. With their yellowish skin and somewhat dour facial expressions, the figures at times suggest Edward Gorey characters with jaundice. Their naively painted flat features and wide-set eyes have become the signature style of Os Gemeos's street art, and, as graffiti creatures, these figures can be seen scampering down the alleyways of Sao Paulo on skinny legs. Their liveliness is partly lost as they become frozen on the canvas, but at Deitch the music added context. An impish little figure carrying a satchel, for example, appeared rather less innocent when viewed against an audio background of thrashing heavy-metal guitars.

A look behind a brightly colored curtain revealed this show's main attraction: Cavaleiro Marginal (Outsider Cowboy), an enormous, 36-foot figure, fashioned from cloth and stuffed with Styrofoam, which lay collapsed on its side along the gallery's right wall. The friendly giant was sewn and stuffed on site. Sporting blue overalls, the creature stared blankly ahead, looking a little miffed. His head was encased in a kind of protective helmet from which sequin-studded shutters opened out on either side. Painted on the inside of these shutters, partly occupying the figure's field of vision and perhaps his thoughts, was an aquamarine seascape with shining sun--a dreamlike scene at once magical and oddly distant.

Os Gemeos's work celebrates exactly this kind of retreat into an inner, imaginary world. Inside the figure's head the viewer could see a miniature hall of mirrors that surrounded a little girl kneeling in a boat and staring up at her infinite reflections with a look of wonder. Clearly we were being invited to enter this same childlike state of awe, in which the world is a magical place, infinite with possibility.

[Os Gemeos have painted a mural at Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island as part of Creative Time's Dreamland Artists Project. Their work can be seen around New York City.]

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