Gerhard Richter made his first mirror painting a decade ago. It is a conventionally silvered square of glass, framed with thin wooden battens, which lie flush with the mirror’s surface. As with many abstract paintings, the frame functions less as a decorative border than as a means of protecting the edges without interfering in the dialogue between physical fact and surface illusion. As both an undiscerning reflector of arbitrary truths and the specific site of the viewer’s reflection on the possibility of meaning, the work ties in closely with Richter’s abiding preoccupation with the relationship

Performance, process and theatricality are the indices of esthetic production that have come to dominate our thinking about art. The work of Amikam Toren feasts on the ironic complexities of this situation, addressing meaning in art through the transubstantiation of form.

In a series of pictures inaugurated in 1983, entitled “Of the Times” (exhibited at Chisenhale Gallery), as well as in a recent, related series, “Armchair Paintings” 1989–91 (exhibited at Anthony Reynolds Gallery), Toren creates objects out of their own substance. “Of the Times” is comprised of canvases covered with a grayish