Lawrence Weiner’s work has been remarkably consistent over the years. Although committed to post-Structuralist notions such as the contingency of the open text, deferred meaning, and the death of the author, Weiner has pursued a predominantly language-based strategy that is also stubbornly empirical, transforming discourse into content through a transient process of production, presentation, and reception. Indeed, Weiner has wavered very little from his often-quoted 1968 declaration of intent: “1. The artist may construct the piece. 2. The piece may be fabricated. 3. The piece need not be built.

These seven big oil paintings––of flat simplified faces or figures set against pale monochromatic backgrounds that evaporate quickly into nonexistence––are typical of Alex Katz’s figurative work. The inhabitants of his barless, habitatless human zoo are a select group of elegant men and women, upon whom a neutral observer––the painter, Mr. Distanced Narrator––casts his practiced, democratic gaze. Subjects glance back out of the paintings with equal neutrality. Though these obedient subjects might recognize their likenesses on canvas, they would find themselves looking fairly generic, as though

In their seven separate guises, the paintings and sculptures by Erika Rothenberg shown here moan the same infuriating note. It is the bleak, generalized utterance of futility and blame. The title of the show bluntly says it all: “America, the Perfect Country.” This kind of sarcasm elicits an equally taunting response. When Rothenberg’s not scolding her audience for being sexist, superficially altruistic, narrow-minded, ill-informed, and naive about themselves and the people around them, she’s announcing that the American conscience isn’t as spotless as it’s advertised to be. Is an art audience