Occasionally, I find myself baffled by the ubiquity of certain fast-rising young artists. Margaret Lee, who also co-runs the hip gallery 47 Canal, is a case in point. Her teasing allusions to a gray area between principled high art and merely fashionable interior design always seemed too slight, too tentative, to register as the critique she presumably intended. And the title of her latest exhibition, “It’s not that I’m not taking (this) seriously,” suggests that her work could all be just a prank. Still, while her latest show doesn’t represent a major departure from her previous efforts, it moves in the direction of more serious ideas.
The three sculptures that make up “It’s not…” combine found, made and manipulated objects in the style of enigmatic practical jokes. The first piece is an arrangement of painting-studio clutter transformed into a makeshift fountain by a working hose. The second consists of a string of realistically painted plaster-cast bananas tied to a rope and slung over the top of a movable wall. And the third is an oversize 10-gallon hat pierced by a short length of gleaming stainless-steel pipe.
They’re all indisputably lighthearted things, but Lee’s incipient insinuations to knottier problems around representation and illusion suggest that, with this outing at least, she deserves the benefit of the doubt.