Illusions at the Guggenheim

The Guggenheim is offering icy cool respite from the oppressive New York heat until September 5th in The Shapes of Space. The centerpiece of which without doubt for me is the Alyson Shotz glacial glass curtain showcased on the ground floor which is neither made of glass nor really 3-dimensional. Illusions, it turns out, cannot fool the camera!

Yuken Teruya's origami inspired trees are by far the most delicate pieces at the exhibition while Mika Rottenberg's video Dough is mesmerizing and grotesque. Tiny tots and oldsters alike crowd in the little wooden compartment and sit it out for a full cycle watching lumps of dough being kneaded and processed by gigantic hands.

copyright Guggenheim.org
One of Teruya's trees

Unfortunately not all of the pieces on show are of such fascinating shallowness (as Sholtz's work) or weirdness (as Rottenberg's) or beauty (as Teruya's). And at moments walking down the spiral I cannot help but give thanks to the spiral structure of the rotunda which only on rare occasions (the Russian exhibition for one) has managed to be overwhelmed by the art.