Uri Nir

Mixed messages and cross-purposes obstructed the thrust of “Accelerator,” the most ambitious (read: high-budget) effort yet of Uri Nir’s budding career. Presented together as one synchronized entity, four discrete but related elements occupied three spaciously contiguous galleries. One housed a sprawling installation of large, freestanding doors that cut up the space at irregular intervals parallel to the room’s rectilinear perimeter, as though shorthanding an invisible interior architecture. Emulating the carved heft of heavy ancient gates, the doors were made of translucent Plexiglas and illuminated from within, functioning as wall-size light boxes programmed to flash on and off on a frenzied cycle. The effect was beyond theatrical—it was almost cartoonish, like a haunted house at a fair.

The flashing installation had also served as the stage set for Nir’s short black-and-white

— Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer