When he was younger, the German provocateur was often labelled an enfant terrible. But Meese, now forty-six, is still churning the history of his homeland into anarchic, sexually charged, and reliably sloppy paintings, plays, and operas, none of which are for the easily offended. (The artist has been tried and acquitted in German courts more than once for the crime of using the Nazi salute in his performances.) His first New York outing in five years features comparatively decorous works on paper: ballpoint sketches of sprites wearing the Iron Cross, illustrated books slathered with fluorescent paint, and a powerfully indecorous portrait of Richard Wagner, whose redemptive “Parsifal” is one of the artist’s touchstones. A large-scale installation—a walk-in fun house of collaged body parts and anxious scrawling—gives a sense of Meese at full blast. (Nolan; Through Dec. 17.)
November 24, 2016
