I'm walking to McCarren park and just as I'm about to cross into the crowded, grassless brilliance on this sunny sunday, i find a small piece of wood on the ground that says "WOOD" in red letters.  I love self-referential objects that explain their claim to reality in two words or less so of course I pick it up.  This is better than wood-inscribed wood.  It's an invitation to an exhibition that I had every intention of attending already, but now more so.  The exhibition, like the wood, is also called "Wood".

The show itself was just as succint.  Everything in this huge new space was made of wood or had to do with wood and possibly the woods, including my buddy Mark Stafford's awesome performance during which  Matt White built a huge wooden construction around Mark, who stood there, immobile like wood.
 

The gallery is called English Kills Gallery.  I'm not quite sure if that's some sort of pun about a dude who lives there called __ English slash the nature of the English langauge, or just some random title but the space is amazing.  Although it's minorly remote, it's totally accessible by bike or train, and the kids who built it live there.   Just about all the artists had really strong work both conceptually and visually.  My only problem was with the poorly delineated guide to who did what.  The three best works, hands down, were the rubber molded guns in the wooden gun case, the sound piece toward the center that nurtured the plants with constant neutral music under its wooden substructures, and the central construction with awesome compartments and planks full of pill bottles and orther random cool shit.  Props to anyone who can tell me who those artists are.  

Go see the show.  I think it's up for a while.  English Kills Gallery