Phoebe Washburn, “View into Hippie Certified Lab Kitchen,” mixed media, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Nunderwater Nort Lab
Zach Feuer Gallery, 548 West 22nd St., free, through August 12, 212-989-7700
www.zachfeuer.com
Temperatures in a Lab of Superior Specialness
Mary Boone Gallery, 745 Fifth Ave., free, through July 30, 212.752.2929
www.maryboonegallery.com
phoebe washburn slideshow
In the summer of 2008, hot, weary art lovers could stop off at the Zach Feuer Gallery and buy a cup of Gatorade as part of Phoebe Washburn’s interactive Rube Goldberg-like greenhouse installation “Tickle the Shitstem.” (They could also purchase pencils, silkscreened T-shirts, and colored urchin shells.) The native New Yorker, whose “While Enhancing a Diminishing Deep Down Thirst, the Juice Broke Loose” was included in that year’s Whitney Biennial, uses recycled materials to explore corporate branding and methods of production. Washburn is back at Zach Feuer, this time with the massive site-specific installation “Nunderwater Nort Lab,” a tall, circular wooden structure in which she serves lunch every afternoon — but only to the gallery staff, not to visitors, who are not allowed inside. Instead, they have to be satisfied with just smelling the food and peering in through viewing holes, populated by living plants, that worm through the work. People can also gaze through the meshed window in the doorway, which announces, “If you smell what the rock is cooking,” a quote from former professional wrestler and would-be actor Dwayne Johnson, better known as the Rock. Meanwhile, at Mary Boone, Washburn has repurposed materials from previous installations to create “Temperatures in a Lab of Superior Specialness,” in which she reuses such items as golf balls, tables, folding chairs, garden hoses, extension cords, dyed shells, and painted rocks to line the larger space with such pieces as “Solar Eclipse Viewing Organized by an Ambitious Hippie,” “Skills Learned from My Hippie Orthodontist,” “Table for Hippie / Athletes Who Drink Gatorade,” and “Made at Summer Camp by Children of Hippies.” In a separate room, “View into Hippie Certified Lab Kitchen” is like a bizarre meth lab, consisting of buckets of water being pumped into a glass tank that holds golf balls, with a long viewing hole composed of wooden slats and ferns that evoke “Nunderwater Nort Lab.” From a distance, the piece resembles a strange yet harmless creature. In these “ORT” works, Washburn comments on the boredom of suburban living, although we’re still trying to figure out what she has against hippies.