Jeppe Hein

Jeppe Hein’s second show at 303 Gallery—his last show here was “Please . . .” in 2008—started before visitors even entered the space. Piercing the broad storefront’s frosted glass window was Upside Down, 2011, a telescope-like arrangement of lenses through which an unexpectedly shrunken and inverted view of the interior was visible. Hein’s primary concern—shared with Olafur Eliasson and Carsten Höller among others—is the interplay of presumption and perception, with what we expect to see and what finally manifests. In Upside Down, as in the other works of which it here provided a distorted overview, the artist holds out the promise of a particular experience only to then deny it. What transpires is at once frustrating in its refusal of instinctively longed-for spectacle, and more nuanced than any simple stunt.

The gallery’s interior is dominated by Light Pavilion

— Michael Wilson