As far as I can tell, Anselm Kiefer’s work is devoid of any recognizable sense of humor. Weighty and monumental, it takes itself seriously, in the solemn tradition of history painting. This might not be worth mentioning, but for the fact that several of the pieces here play with notions of truth and knowledge as they are embodied in the book or library. This strategy calls to mind Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, 1983. The power of Eco’s book lies in the Rabelaisian frivolity with which the notion of learning is dismantled and reduced to a kind of dessicated narrow-mindedness. Books,

“Shifting Focus,” an exhibition of photographic work by 16 artists, neither claims to be a survey, nor in any specific way to be representative of current photography by women. What it offers instead is the opportunity to consider diverse practices that are not reducible to the common denominator of gender. Having said that, the overriding concern of the work does seem to be patterns of perception as seen in the light of sexual difference. It is the merit of this exhibition and the accompanying catalogue essay by Susan Butler to suggest and emphasize such a reading, with all the complications