Anj Smith @ Hauser & Wirth through 10/02/2010

Fourteen nearly miniature, Dutch-looking, post-apocalyptic oils are each encrusted with a miniature sculpture. Most depict wan, androgynous figures in a wasteland populated by tiny Bosch-like visages and skulls, before a distant, darkening horizon. Clad in tattered gauzy fabrics, they are "sheltered" by banner, curtain and tent-like objects. Patched together from the remains of our civilization's T-shirts every stray thread and cord in the pictures draws a parallel hopelessness. The works seem to illustrate an apocalypse expected 20 years ago, with scraps of Papa Smurf and Mickey Mouse and one bearing the tragically obsolete slogan "hang in there."

Ray Johnson @ Roth 160A E. 70th through 3/27/10

"Dear Max, Dear Ray, Dear Vince"

One hundred twenty six collages and letters define the smallest possible sub-culture. Each work is excruciatingly personal and trivial, each rings with insecurity and freedom, deprecation and pride, both threatening and disarming, polished and haphazard. In Johnson's "correspondence school" works even genre is in doubt. The appearance of surrealism is comically ridiculed. The make-up of Johnson's imaginary audience jars with hilarity. Insignificant clippings are modified (in every degree) as though some great meaning is immanent. Inside and opaque jokes and references parody epistle-craft and psychosis. The art world is abjectly longed for while bureaucracy is elevated to an art form.