"Some Exhaust"
Through 25 September.
Benjamin Csrlson
Last summer, Do-Ho Suh suspended a translucent nylon replica of his New York apartment from the ceiling of Lehmann Maupin Gallery. The installation felt jarringly disconnected from its surroundings, which was precisely its point. Now, for this summer's "Some Exhaust," organzier Matthew Lusk has taken an opposite approach by constructing inside the gallery a full-size garage that refers directly to the location's former life as a truck depository while also registering the idiosyncrasies of the current Rem Koolhaas-designed space.
Despite its premise, the show resembles a thematic summer group show more that it does an expolration in the historical conditions of the gallery. Garage-themes works by Lusk and 19 other artists have been installed in and around the structure: some are more relevant than others. Photographs and a video by Caroline Allison investigate teen suicides in garages. Rachel Owens's kneeling cardboard horse with accompanying flowers made from broken bottles, on the other hand, is harder to relate to the space. Model-making, that quintessential garage hobby, is the subject of Lucy Raven's mass of interlocking balsa-wood wedges. Her Contrail Kit (some assembly required) (2004) refers to both the Contrail brand of model airplane and the condensation trails that follow jets.
The most enjoyable works are topical but subtle. One of these is Bryan Crockett's You Will Never Know (2004), a spiderweb typical of any shed, cellar or attic-except that it is more durably constructed out of nylon and resin. Amusingly, the web is installed not in Luck's garage, but rather incongruously in the doorway to the gallery's office.