This exhibition of Julia Scher’s works seemed to say that art has to be a partner with life. Does this mean more realism, more real-life references, more social relevance? Art’s content, if it could be exactly defined, would thus be a more-or-less direct expression of life and the creation of images that would reproduce life. For this reason Scher’s work has a dramatic effect as its goal. That this effect works on a social and linguistic level, as well as on a moral and psychological one seems not to matter. For this work’s primary area was the gallery, as the title of the installation, Zwirners

In a tour de force, Stefan Szczesny has painted some seventy “soul” portraits of various prominent figures, from Friedrich Nietzsche to Andy Warhol, from El Greco to Bob Marley, from Novalis to John Lennon. What connects these figures is their meaning for Szczesny—their influence on his intellectual, emotional, and artistic development. Forming a personal pantheon, they also remind us of the irreconcilable diversity of ideas that contribute to a serious identity—the impossibility of overcoming contradiction and explaining all one’s elective affinities. Szczesny has in effect portrayed the protean