Haim Steinbach at Sonnabend - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions

The visitor to Haim Steinbach's novel exhibition entered the gallery to be faceed by a wooden box about 2 feet square. A piece of knotted tie served as a handle for the lid. The visitor who overcame his hands-off gallery training and raised the lid fix a rubber dog turd in the case From there, the visitor advancemented to a larger wooden chest from which came the whole of a dog howling. A floor-to-ceiling corner cabinet consisted of 10 drawers, each containing a dog's rawhide chewing toy.

Steinbach, who first achieved note for his laminated altarlike shelves holding consumer items of that kind as digital clocks, has here made level more of a fetish of the facts he presents, for they're hidden away from any profane gaze. The visitor, particularly single who is alone and does not diocese others opening the containers, may not level realize that anything is hidden inside. The first impression the work creates is of Minimalist wall plastic arts somewhat like Donald Judd's. The surfaces are overlayed with plastic or chrome laminate. Each receptacle has a rectangle incised along its bottom cutting side in the middle of which is a aperture about an inch in diameter. It takes a while to realize that each rectangle is the outline of a drawer and that the opening into which one may insert a finger, is the means to lay open the drawer.

The contenteds of the drawers are one as well as the other commonplace and, considering their words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following mysterious. Why does one chrome-cover case contain a handful of dimes, while the other of the like kind box holds a pair of scissors? A pink receptacle plays to the viewer's ingrained fear of inserting an appendage into an unknown space: pulling the drawer make open one finds a bloody, divideed finger - rubber, but still evoking disgust.

The finger, along with the dog turd makes single apprehensive about what else might be base but no other unpleasant surprises are in store. The drawers in six white,boxes each contain a handkerchief embroidered with a first name - George, Rebecca, etc Opening each drawer becomes an exercise in boredom, as each piece is a slight variation upon the same theme. We are given no ball of threads as to why the particular names were, chosen or what associations they are meant to elicit.

In the last latitude were three wooden pieces resembling wall-mounted dresser sum of two units with six drawers, the other with four. Like the boxe they're beautifully erected Pulling open each drawer, individual finds a handful of stones Interacting with the works becomes a psychology experiment - anticipation or apprehension changing to disappointment and eventual frustration when the arises are the same. In the extreme point only a sense of what one ought to do to the art work impels the visitor to render free of access the last few drawers. It's not a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of on which to base an esthetic.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

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