Grace Weir

GRACE WEIR'S exhibition is basically one large installation piece, carried out in various media

GRACE WEIR'S exhibition is basically one large installation piece, carried out in various media. It is called Man On Houston Street and is apparently tied in with NY memories and impressions, including an encounter there with a man who said: "Hey, you take a picture of me!" And in fact, over two walls are spread symmetrical rows of what appear to be blown up negatives, whose images vary from blurry and indistinct to quasi surreal.

On the other side of the large space, a video blinks away with changing imagery, some of it "thematic" and some of which seems almost at random. On the floor stands a gleaming open sided chrome cube, with small variants scattered about. The debt to Sol Le Witt seems strong, though without his almost puritan austerity.

According to a catalogue note, this cube is a model of a Menger Sponge, "a math puzzle representing a hounded structure that can unfold into infinity". Once again, we seem close to Le Witt territory, since permutations and combinations are part of his modus operandi. The note also says that the exhibition "forces us to think of the dichotomy between information and communications, data and meaning reality and memory".

I remember hearing/reading something like that on a good many occasions, and the repetition of it has made me rather sceptical. Visually it all spreads rather thin, and the exhibition as a whole left me with curiously little aftertaste.