Louis Lieberman, at James Yu, is another artist working directly and rather belatedly on the wall, following, like Porter, a path opened by Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Dorothea Rockburne, etc. Unlike Porter’s work Lieberman’s is all real and does not involve illusion, although it presents a somewhat unreal phenomenon. Fiberglass bas-relief forms are glued to the wall, spackled and painted until they are continuous with its surface. The result is a network of intersecting tunnellike lines. Different patterns are formed in each piece—a square, a group of small crisscrosses, a long vertical line broken by horizontal ones at regular intervals—and the intersections are tied off with red plastic baggie ties. The configuration is simple and organic and looks as if something is sending out roots just beneath the paint’s surface. In a couple of other pieces, large balls protrude beneath the surface and are tied off with string, suggesting Peter Agostini’s work, and in a larger sense, Eva Hesse.

––Roberta Pancoast Smith