Lari Pittman: Dioramas (2021) debuted a suite of new paintings in London that reflect on the continued political and personal resonance of the past. Through a group of larger canvases and more intimate works, acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist Pittman draws on the rich history of the decorative arts, yielding optically dazzling compositions of interlocking forms and motifs dense with pictorial references and symbolism.

The large-scale body of work in the exhibition explores the linked histories of France and the United States, taking as its central subject a nineteenth-century parure: an ensemble of jewels meant to be worn together. Rendered in brilliant colors over darker grounds, turquoise and coral jewelry are framed by rope garlands and beset by creatures—caterpillars, moths, flies, rats, and ravens—that recall the iconography of Baroque still lifes. Similarly, smaller canvases depict elaborately embellished gourds alongside totemistic animal presences. Pittman’s compositions thus resonate with the vanitas tradition, in which symbols of wealth and beauty exist alongside animals that devour and destroy, in allegories of the fleeting nature of life and its material seductions.

The ornate surfaces of the works in Dioramas were unified by Pittman’s imposition of painted rectilinear bars on the lower half of each painting, emphasizing their flatness and creating a visual and conceptual barrier between the canvases and the viewer’s space. With these railings, Pittman conspicuously invokes the titular notion of a diorama—a conceit long used by museums to display historical artifacts in vignettes that suggest preconceived narratives. Like the tableaux of such dioramas, Pittman’s paintings establish a formal relationship with the viewer, arranging and reconstituting historical allusions and fragments for the present day. The jewelry, for example, is inscribed with dates of important milestones in the national histories of the United States and France: 1776, 1789, 1863, 1871, and 1944. These years mark the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Paris Commune, and the Liberation of Paris—moments of violence and liberation. Pittman’s dioramas operate as contemporary history paintings, reflecting on the opulence and trauma of the past to invite contemplation on the complex opportunities and risks of the present day.