Serge Spitzer at Nyehaus

Serge Spitzer's large-scale projects, which have been shown extensively in Europe, tend to move beyond the post-minimalist esthetic of the 1970s, while his smaller works--photographs and site-specific sculptures--adhere more closely to that movement's original concerns. The first Spitzer exhibition in New York since 2002 offered a selection of new and old works, all of which share the artist's consistently playful engagement with the issues of process, objecthood and site-specificity.

About Sculpture (1984-87) consists of two stretched-linen panels laminated with brown paper. These abutted painting-like objects are held in place on the wall by several small circular rubber shock absorbers. The external force asserted by the shock absorbers creates an interdependent relationship between the two panels: if one panel is removed, the other falls. Deadload-Deadlock (1986) examines the relationship between object, architecture and the position of the viewer. High overhead, a foot and a half of milled aluminum beam protrudes from the wall. Resting crosswise on the beam is a rolled-up coir doormat. The tension created is at once material and psychological since it looks as if the mat might unroll and fall to the floor at any minute. Instead it remains precariously balanced, leaving us to wonder whether or not Spitzer accomplishes this feat by hidden trickery.

Two thread pieces also invoke a sense of uncertainty. Fold (Gramercy), 2005-06, is a continuous length of black thread repeatedly looping up and over

a high partition and then down to the floor to create an expanse of meandering vertical lines. The work seems to defy gravity until you walk around the wall and see how loops of thread form a counterbalance on the other side. Upload (Gramercy), 2005-06, is also made from a single thread attached to the wall in a large flat tangle of swooping Pollock-like skeins.

It is difficult to figure out how this complex thread work was made. A similar "how did he do that?" response is generated by Global Culture (RED), 2004-05, which, like Spitzer's more expansive installations, involves technology and machinery. On a large red table, the top of which continually tilts and pivots, is a leather soccer ball that rolls around without ever falling to the floor. This balancing act provokes a sense of anticipation and fascination. Yet it's important not to miss that Global Culture, like the other works presented here, is essentially a traditional sculpture, a work concerned with gravity, process and the relationship between object and base, albeit subjected to Spitzer's characteristic irony and humor.

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