Once again, ARTINFO has sent its intrepid staff into the streets of New York, charged with reviewing the art they saw in a single (sometimes run-on) sentence. (To see our One-Line Reviews as an illustrated slideshow, click here.)
Miroslaw Balka, “The Order of Things” at Gladstone Gallery, 530 West 21st Street, through March 30
In this Foucauldian installation exploring historical trauma, the Polish artist has transformed the gallery into a sealed-off, echo-enhancing chamber in which two large black hoses relentlessly pour brackish water into what appears to be a pair of massive, rusted dumpsters; entering through a small door that heightens the disorienting sense of being dwarfed and possibly menaced, the viewer may have a sense of the “stationary anxiety” caused by endless repetition, though the piece's minimalism detaches it from any sense of collective history. — Lori Fredrickson
Melanie Bonajo, “One Question, Three Rooms, 44 Possible Answers” at PPOW Gallery, 535 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor, through March 30
An array of texts and images, many with an emphasis on texture and color, probe issues such as gender, sex, and the surrounding power dynamics with a levity often absent from such discourse, offering a reminder that humor and charm can be effective means of inquiry. — Sara Roffino
Hilary Harkness at the FLAG Art Foundation, 545 West 25th Street, 9th Floor, through May 18
Like a radical feminist appropriating the visual style of “Where's Waldo?,” Hilary Harkness offers voyeuristic access to spaces like historic battleships, submarines, military bases, and a Christie's auction house in the 15 impossibly detailed cutaway paintings brought together here (spanning 2000 to 2011), all of which are inhabited by a scantily-clad and supermodel-proportioned all-female population — except in the show's only painting of an outright orgy, which is all-male — whose activities, whether trifling, tantalizing, or deadly, register, in the best pieces, as simultaneously funny, creepy, absurd, and disturbing. — Benjamin Sutton
“New Prints 2013/Winter” at International Print Center New York, 508 West 26th Street, 5th Floor, through March 9
I went to the IPCNY to see the exhibition of pop-up books, but found myself totally captivated by the “New Prints” show instead, especially Serena Perrone's “Maintaining a Safe Distance and Living to Tell,” a multi-paneled, three-toned print panorama of violent landscapes, David Sandlin's “Pure-Ton-o-Fun Co Scatalog (book),” a neon-hued, illustrated, accordion silkscreen featuring wide-eyed anthropomorphized-object cartoon characters, and Kasey Ramirez's haunting “Edifice,” which evoked an ocean pier at night, thus renewing my love for the medium thanks to a happy coincidence. — Alanna Martinez
Shinique Smith, “Bold as Love” at James Cohan Gallery, 533 West 26th Street, through March 16
This show made me think a lot about chaos theory as it relates to consumption. — Shane Ferro