Ground Control

Photograph: courtesy Parker’s Box

Ground Control, a huge black ball, nearly five feet in diameter, welcomes visitors to Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt’s New York solo debut. Sometimes resting lightly on the floor, sometimes quivering on the ceiling, sometimes floating halfway between the two and drifting slowly around the room, it appears to magically have a life of its own. Inflated with just the right admixture of helium to keep it suspended in midair, the balloon responds to the movements of the viewer, as well as to air currents and changes in temperature. And despite its ostensibly benign presence, almost like that of an overgrown pet, it also suggests the sinister white globes that pursued fugitives in the old TV series The Prisoner.

Gowanus comprises a grid of 52 closely cropped photographs of a milky spot on a body of water; the subtle beauty of the repeating but evanescent occurrence belies the fact that it depicts seepage from some sort of leaking pipe in the Gowanus Canal. A video projection of a transparent plastic flag waving in the wind, One Second of Silence (Part 01, New York, 2008), manages to steal the show. Unmanipulated and dumbfoundingly straightforward, the banner’s undulation refracts the cloudy sky in such a gorgeously liquid and uncanny way that it suggests a digital effect. Lacking identifying emblems, or even much materiality, it seems like a symbol for a nation of dreamers. Whether found or created, the simple phenomena on which Dekyndt focuses our attention generate quiet poetry.