Anti-axis, bold as lust

Corners never had it so good. Lynda Benglis and her lead, flowing like Lucien Freud's depiction of fat. Richard Serra's propped plates of steel, viewing section taped off and a uniformed guard to make sure you don't transgress. (Insurance, you know.) James Turrell has his own room, as befits an artist who works with light. "Munson, Blue" punctures one corner's darkess. The eyes adjust, the blue is startling, the lit polygon a jolt. That gray plywood beam diagonally wedding two walls is by Robert Morris. It's sufficiently overhead to make the neck crane. One passes beneath it to Serra's other submission, another pairing of steel slabs; these have their own tight space, as the jutting corners of the steel penetrate the sheetrock. Ever so slightly, ever so firmly.
This is a spare but sonorous show, and it is absolutely stunning to see such work. To stroll through a ballroom-sized gallery* with one's attention swivelled to the margins. In a sense, the art's observing you.

90˚ The Margins as Center, at Andrea Rosen
525 W. 24 st.
212-627-6000
through Jan. 26
www.andrearosengallery.com

*okay, okay, there are actually only two pieces on the main space. The Benglis huddles in the antiroom... ..

Photo by Christopher Burke, © James Turrell