Fête

The best part of the holiday season is to be found at Locks Gallery's group show "Fête." Sort of.

by Rachel Frankford

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Published: Nov 29, 2006

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The best part of the holiday season is to be found at Locks Gallery's group show "Fête." Sort of. As images go, the shows' are more Buñuel than Rockwell. The installation seems like a multilayered examination of a party, moving from functional objects (Jill Bonovitz's ceramics) to commentaries on society through objects (Jane Irish's urns, depicting scenes of social unrest and historical tragedy), to existential anxieties. The show is rife with flourishes of humor, mostly dark. Virgil Marti's wall installation of delicately lit leaves and flowers composed of cast bones tames the specter of death by making it slyly decorative. He arranged lightbulbs coated with reflective material so that you see your reflection in the middle of a circle of skulls, and the effect is arch without being cloying. Stuart Netsky's new series consists of ornately framed mirrors coated with deep, lustrous enamels that give off enough sheen that you teeter back and forth between being fully absorbed by the colors and by your reflection and that of the exhibition. And simultaneous double vision is what it's all about. Damn this eggnog.

Runs through Dec. 16, Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Square South, 215-629-1000, www.locksgallery.com.

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