Michael Workman

An overstuffed suitcase operates as a metaphor for a more universal truth in Lance Friedman's work. Take "Transplant," a sculpture made of glass, polyvinyl, steel and wood: an unassuming white suitcase except for the circular openings on either side, punctured by a bundle of glass twigs. A simple piece, with a simple premise in its alteration of a familiar object, but in a way that expertly proposes a sense of violated spatial and material relationships. Friedman demonstrates a wicked sense of humor in leaving the suitcase to accommodate its own refinement of design. Indiscriminate in color (they may be purple, a dark blue or black), the twigs take on yet more ambivalence in their relationship to the puritanical white and polished metallic of the steel reinforcements that bear them away.

Lance Friedman shows at Habatat Galleries, 222 West Superior, (312)440-0288, through April 24.

(2004-03-18)

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