Installing one thread drawing in each space, Spitzer plays off the inherent qualities particular to each environment and provides a material leitmotif that unites the two spaces. At Nyehaus, Fold (Gramercy) has been installed on a partition wall that extends up to the height of the mezzanine railing. The thread runs up and over this wall, over and over again, slowly and deliberately moving from one edge to the other. The thread falls in barely meandering vertical lines on the face of the wall, looping up again and again from the floor to continue its journey. Occasionally tension in the thread has caused it to twist on itself, producing slight visual incidents that enliven the visual field. The work is mysterious in the sense that you cannot understand how the work is suspended until you walk around the wall, where you can see the thread looping in counterbalance above a stairwell.

In the gallery’s downstairs space, Spitzer’s installation of Global Culture (2004-2005) beneath the swooping trajectories of Upload (Gramercy) puns on the idea of a “club” room. A leather ball is slowly rolling around on a large, bright red table that is tilting and pivoting, keeping the ball in continuous play. Seeing the soccer ball balancing on the moving table evokes a sense of wonder that comes back to simple human experiences like balancing a ball on one’s hand by keeping that hand in steady but constant motion. Yet in spite of the material and technological modernity of the table, Global Culture is essentially a traditional but ironic sculptural proposition where gravity and balance are set in precarious motion.

Spitzer’s works employ a startling range of materials and approaches even as they are united in a sense of sculptural irony and a playful materialization of ideas. By evading the prison house of signature style, Spitzer allows the significance of individual works to grow and shift in relation to a constellation of apparently contrasting works. Time and again, however, we find the artist at play with the rules of the game, bending its means to his ends.