Display at Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles

display (v.)

c.1300, “unfold, spread out, unfurl” (a banner, etc.), from Old French desploiir (Modern French déployer) “unfold, unfasten, spread out” (of knots, sealed letters, etc.), from Latin displicare “to scatter,” in Medieval Latin “to unfold,” from dis– “un-, apart” (see dis-) + plicare “to fold” (from PIE root *plek- “to plait”).

Properly of sails or flags (and unconnected to play); meaning “reveal, exhibit, expose to view” is late 14c.; sense of “reveal unintentionally, allow to be seen” is from c. 1600.

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Display presents eleven artists with varied and overlapping approaches to the significance of display, both within their works’ subjects and their particular modes of presentation.

The exhibition takes as a starting point the photograph Theo (2024) by exhibiting artist Pamela Ramos. The photograph shows a young boy in his giraffe pyjamas looking at the wildlife diorama in the “Habitats of Africa” exhibit at the Natural History Museum of LA County. A diorama, literally translating to through that which is seen (dia + orama), is a display device often used by natural history and ethnographic museums to simulate a historic, cultural or natural environment in three-dimensional space. Dioramas are synonymous with the rise of the museum and strategic museological display mechanisms. In Theo, the diorama’s mimetic functions are doubled back as the subject himself, in his own animal costume, mimics what he is looking at. These more formal aspects are offset by the intimacy, playfulness and spontaneity of the captured image, contrasting with the museum’s carefully constructed environment.