Justin Schorr’s images, shown at Westbroadway, also derive from the aggregation of unitary shapes. However, it would be more accurate to say that his large painted shapes, which read as clearly defined figures against the white canvas ground, are divided into parts. The separateness of the parts is accentuated by their individual illusionistic modeling without reference to the total mass. In fact, the whole figure reads as a flat shape which is contrarily composed of three-dimensional units. The question raised by Schorr’s work is whether his seemingly systematic ordering doesn’t need a consistent relational logic to justify its artifice. Because the only apparent reason for many of Schorr’s choices is personal whimsy, his rigidly arranged patterns seem too artfully contrived. The emblematic distinctness of Schorr’s figures also demands an explanation. The hovering, blimplike shape in Palmer’s Planet seems highly significant, but significant of what? The meaning is obscure. Schorr’s images depend too exclusively on the privacy of personal imagination; his fantasy world is stated rather than shared with the viewer.

––Susan Heinemann