| NEW YORK, CRITICS PICK SHIRLEY TSE MURRAY GUY GALLERY 453 West 17th Street March 30 - May 04 In a move away from her more distinctly three-dimensional output, Shirley Tse's latest New York show, "Polytocous," consists of ten works that tightly hug the gallery walls. Single sheets of pastel-colored vinyl (in blue, pink, and yellow) are sliced, twisted, and pinned to take on a plethora of suggestive forms. Tse neither adds nor discards: Her process entails methodically cutting sections of the material and reassembling them to form patterns in varying degrees of relief. Freeways (all works 2002) is the most aesthetically reductive piece, resembling something like a Lucio Fontana slash painting done under the influence of Kandinsky's arabesque lines. A more fashion-conscious sensibility is revealed in I Saw Dragons Rising Above the Substrate (Mirrored), in which a number of leaflike forms that curl away from the surface are held in place by small strips of vinyl, calling to mind ultralight high heels. Tse seems to follow the Russian constructivist imperative of letting the material speak for itself. Yet, in her hands it acquires multiple voices. - Gregory Williams |
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| The Economy of Self-Generation (Rotation) detail, 2002 |