NEW YORK TIMES
John LeKay Paula Allen Gallery 560 Broadway (at Prince Street) Through June 16
As a sculptor, John LeKay is interested in changing states, viewer participation and a strange, not always comfortable intimacy. One of the objects in his first solo exhibition in New York City is simply a sensory deprivation tank, the door to which may be opened (and the smell of Epsom salts in water inhaled) or not. In another piece, the viewer may turn on a large tape recorder whose microphone, visible in a sound-proofed plexiglass box, will supposedly record the sound of silence. In a tall columnar plexiglass vitrine subtitled "Vanishing Object," a cross made of closet freshener is slowly evaporating.
Anyone who thinks all this sounds a bit sophomoric would not be entirely wrong. Nonetheless, these works generate an atmosphere of quietude and heightened awareness, a sense of time passing and things changing, that can engross and bring the buzzing SoHo scene to a momentary halt.
Roberta Smith Friday, June 8, 1990
