In 2004, Rachel Mason began to make groupings of small porcelain figures for every year of her life. Each set includes, in addition to a self-portrait, busts portraying global political and military leaders who were chief actors in some notable geopolitical aggression or armed conflict during that grouping’s respective year. Titled The Ambassadors, the work is currently complete through 2008 (the artist’s thirtieth year), and includes 117 figures ranging from two and a half to four inches in height. At Andrew Rafacz the figures appeared on a long shelf that snaked around the gallery, and ran in

A wheelbarrow balancing on a seashell, giant plastic leis whirling in loops of color, folding chairs and garden hoses flying through the air—it’s a party all right, but frozen in place.

Such is the paradoxically festive yet static atmosphere of Justin Cooper’s second solo exhibition at moniquemeloche. Cooper—known for edgy, slapstick, and invariably manic performances that put objects acquired at Home Depot, the Party Store, and Offi ceMax to inspired misuse—here distills the animating, tension-building force of his live art into the still form of stand-alone sculpture.

No small task, that, coaxing