One of the first works I ever encountered by Jorge Macchi was Vidas Paralelas (Parallel Lives), 1998, in which two rectangular pieces of glass with almost identical patterns of cracks are placed next to one another on a simple white platform. The broken pieces of glass exuded a timid but irrefutable silence from within the edges of their fragmentation. There seemed to be a sort of premonition hidden in the temporal disjunction between the two panes, each of which condensed the obscure singularity of its originary event. One of the two panes had actually experienced the “original rupture,” a

A plastic-wrapped rib-eye steak lay in the center of House of Gaga’s tile floor. Surrounding it were fifteen small illustrations hung on the gallery’s walls depicting captive beasts—big cats, apes, snakes, and so on—that artist (and cofounder of New York’s Reena Spaulings Fine Art) Emily Sundblad sketched from life on the grounds of the Santa Barbara Zoo. The drawings, each rendered in Yves Saint Laurent eyeliner on paper and mounted on leather, pleather, or mat board, were all protectively framed; a few were adorned with a piece of lace, a double reference to femininity—and animal