Richard Artschwager and Joe Zucker
Nolan/Eckman Gallery
560 Broadway, at Prince Street
SoHo
Through Dec. 20
Two of the most intriguing minds in contemporary art are represented here in separate, small shows.
Richard Artschwager presents nine new charcoal drawings. In several, a thin schematic line and pale shading describe rooms in each of which precisely six items are distributed. In a surrealistically angled corner, for example, a rug, a door, a window, a picture frame, a table and a towel are all attached to the walls as though in an art gallery.
In other drawings, he copied newspaper photographs of disaster aftermaths, like a flooded library or a house crushed by a tornado-tossed tree. These drawings seem unprepossessing at first, but their delicate precision and deadpan mood grow on you.
Joe Zucker's show revolves around ''Jolly Roger,'' a big, cartoony picture of a pirate's flag flapping in the breeze, which he made in 1978 by applying wads of resin-soaked cotton to canvas, mosaic style. He devoted other, related works to the history of cotton, here represented in painted and photographic studies of such subjects as a boll weevil, a slave ship or the plantation where Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.
As does Mr. Artschwager, Mr. Zucker makes art according to his own offbeat rules. KEN JOHNSON
