Best in Show
Recommendations by R. C. Baker
Partial Recall
Lehmann Maupin Gallery
540 West 26th Street
Trough August 25
Beauties and Beastliness
In one corner is Juergen Teller's 2005 color photo of Hitler's Nuremburg podium, the concrete now uneven and stained, and his shot of an animal - stripped to orange ribs and carbonized pelvis - on a rotisserie spit at a German festival. This theme of regimented, mechanized beastliness is countered by Dash Snow's digital prints of what look like enlarged Polaroids; although taken in recent years, these shaggy guys fighting with feather pillows or thrusting out of water with bare-breasted beauties on their shoulders radiate hippie hijinks. Jeffrey Vallance stakes out the middle ground in this show of nine diverse artists, constructing witty reliquaries that range from a standard collection of religious medals and dice (representing lots cast by Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross) to The Gods of Las Vegas, a black box containing rhinestone pins spelling out "Elvis," "Nixon," "Liberace," and "Jesus." There's also Lenin in a red cupboard, basking in the glow of lacquer pins from the Soviet era, and a Coral in the Shape of Connie Chung. All await your veneration.