An odd wrinkle, but intriguing

The basic premise of the show, as described by an enthusiastic art-historian friend - sculptures of well-known feminists' facial and neck wrinkles - didn't sound appealing at all. It seemed too gimmicky for words.

It called to mind the French performance artist Orlan, whose act is the display of her own plastic surgeries, not of the late, brilliant John Coplans, who isolated sections of his own aging body in photographs, the results suggesting bizarre, hairy sculptures. But I had liked the earlier efforts of the sculptor in question, Barbara Zucker, and admired her as a cofounder of New York's A.I.R., billed as the first cooperative women's gallery in the United States. "Don't worry," my friend said. "I know how it sounds. But you'll see."

She was right. In any case, there was not one single wrinkled famous female face to be found, or at least to be recognized, in Zucker's exhibition, "Time Signatures," at the Gershman Y's Borowsky Gallery. Instead there were delicate sculptures of cut steel and rubber, some on tables, others mounted on the walls, that resembled sea fans and different types of coral. (One room's walls were covered with Zucker's wallpaper of these airy branching forms on a pale pink background.)

But each sculpture is in fact an embodiment of a particular woman's wrinkles, created from photographs. They include such world-renowned figures as Golda Meir and Rosa Parks and icons of the art world like art historian Linda Nochlin, artist Louise Bourgeois, and writer-critic Lucy Lippard. They also include Zucker herself, who began this series by photographing her own skin and replicating and enlarging the wrinkles in steel and rubber.

Zucker's enterprise lacks the intense self-possession of Coplans'. The wrinkles of the famous would seem to add an element of carnival lure that Zucker's work does not deliver and that I suspect she would be uncomfortable with. But when considered simply as forms derived from nature (which, of course, they are), her sculptures are beautiful, graceful evidence of passing time. That they happen to be wrinkles is a compelling argument for leaving well enough alone. Think of yourself as a sculpture.

"Morgellons" is an apt title for the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery's Fourth Annual Invitational show. Like the mysterious skin disease, the artworks here aren't easily identified or categorized, and you may find yourself scratching your head, metaphorically at least. Not being absolutely sure sounded like a good way to start the new year.

For starters, I didn't question the fact that in each of Michael Sirianni's inkjet prints, of collages of images that appear to be from magazines, there are two men posed in different kinds of rooms often looking as if they were sinking into quicksand-like carpeting. I found them endearing.

I didn't ask why Casey Watson splashes bits of ink around an otherwise perfectly rendered painting of marbled paper. Or why Roxana Perez-Mendez doesn't include audio components in more of her mixed-media sculptures. Or why Isaac Lin paints in a Sufi-like calligraphy style.

I didn't think twice about the encyclopedic collection of cut-paper objects that Nami Yamamoto assembles in her two display cases - why a pair of scissors and not a flashlight? - but thought instead about how the colors and commonness of the objects reminded me of those Eames cards that can be assembled into structures.

I did wonder where Lee Arnold shot his video, and assumed from its title, S-Bahn, that it was filmed from a train in Berlin. For a minute, I luxuriated in the pleasure of knowing. But I didn't know with certainty. It could have been any city.