Impertinently Magical in Its Tricks is a conceptual framework by artist Mario García Torres specially conceived for Frieze Projects; it includes a video installation, a painting and sculptures. The artist, working in Mexico City and Los Angeles, has been for the last fifteen years consistently questioning notions of time and universal truth, and giving space to modern-day rationally questioned theories. Concepts such as uncertainty, chance, failure, and counter-narratives, are important rhetorical spaces in the practice of the artist.

Specifically installed in the lobby of a Back Lot post-modern building, Impertinently Magical in Its Tricks brings together a number of ideas related to liminal moments and improbable outcomes in life: bridging art, music and popular culture. In the video Falling Together in Time (n.d.), functioning as a visual essay encompassing the whole project, García Torres weaves together an incident in 1981 when Mohammad Ali talked a suicidal jumper off the ledge of a building on Wilshire’s Miracle Mile – three short miles away from Paramount – with the development of Van Halen’s 1983 hit Jump; a song whose synth-heavy style led to the band’s breakup over artistic differences.

The accompanying sculptures envision a possible scenario made of scattered pieces of a smilingly collapsed bandstand. Made with distorted trusses, the objects hint the fright that Van Halen had of stage collapse. It is well know, that the Los Angeles based band had one of the longest and most rigorous riders, which was justified as a test to make sure that all other stage security requirements had been met. The sculptures are objects that foresee that scene. They have stopped functioning as expected, giving space to an otherwise impossible narrative; one that bring us to a different harmony and beauty.

The monochrome, also present on the atmospheric installation, is a canvas that has been covered with a hard-shell shiny paint normally used for concert speakers. The work has a small led light on it that twinkle to the rhythm of a song that was repeatedly heard while doing the painting. These pieces are part of a series that are visually identical, yet energy wise, totally different.