A quickie, when you look it up in the dictionary (I Google’d, I’ll be honest, I didn’t go grab the paper dictionary that sits about 10 feet from my kitchen table as I write this), is either “a rapidly consumed alcoholic drink,” a “brief act or instance of having sex,” or in adjective form, something “done or made quickly.” For Larry Madrigal and his new show at Nicodim, this is all of the above territory: work made quickly, about the joys of life in an intimate relationship but juxtposed with the mundane acts that surround our desire and quest for pleasure. “Each piece was impulsively started, with no second- guessing. The rule was to follow through with whatever was initiated, like a quickie. No time to shower, chew gum, or think about how it’s going—it’s just going.” That sort of look into life without a pretense, with just the urge to make something and give your life or your fantasy a chance to exist feels like pleasure satisfied. “It’s about how life interrupts everything, including pleasure, and how we carry on despite it,” Madrigal says. Carry on. —Evan Pricco
