Whimsy is given an elegant formal gloss by Marepe, a Brazilian artist who cobbles together sculptural arrangements out of found or store-bought items. He seems to have raided a Home Depot or a Walmart, judging by the gardening implements and household goods that have been marshaled here.
The result is a sort of easily digestible visual poetics—emerging, for instance, from the way two wheelbarrows, perched upon shovels extending from their handles, have been tipped up so that their wheels touch. From certain angles, it looks like a curious arthropod. A similar sense of the inanimate coming to life is evident in a balletic trio of ironing boards connected by broom handles, and in a bicycle customized, front and back, with plywood pieces cut in the shapes of a fish’s head and tail. Were Alexander Calder able to visit the show, he might recognize a kindred spirit.—Howard Halle