Joe Sheftel

I went to Joe Sheftel Gallery for the opening of the Alex da Corte exhibition and was surprised by how hushed it was. Usually gallery openings are quite noisy, with people standing around talking, but here for the most part they were looking curiously and quietly at the art. This was largely due to the nature of the work itself: a total installation that filled the gallery, turning it into a mirrored and striped 70s-​looking funhouse with various sculptures and other obstacles occupying patches of the floor. This meant it was hard to stand around schmoozing with frenemies, instead people basically just walked, single-​file, from the door to the desk and back, in a snaky long S-​curve. I wasn’t crazy about this show, not because I like noisy openings and having to navigate around people who are just standing in place in order to see the art, but because exhibitions of this artist’s work I’ve seen elsewhere have an openness to them – there are fronts and backs and different sides that create a variety of perspectives, and you can stand in one place (or just shift position slightly) and make connections between a work’s various parts and contemplate them without being jostled around and directed BY them. This just felt over-​determined. Hence the timid behavior of everyone in it (which is weird, because if it is drawing on funhouse looks shouldn’t people at least be having *fun*?). And the installation’s heavy palette, with lots of reds and pinks, only exacerbated this oppressive feeling. I would give it three stars but I think Joe Sheftel Gallery deserves an extra one just for experimenting with something so weird.