‘At What Point Is the Wax No Longer Wax?’
(Art) Wax is so different under differing conditions that only thinking makes it wax, Descartes wrote. California artist Amir Zaki makes trees and photographs seem just as contingent. Are these oddly shaped trunks and stumps suburban mutants that have been caught in a strange light at night, or did Zaki alter them? It’s a well-trod theme in photography, but Zaki’s images are fresh, neither stagy nor naturalistic, but alien in a surprisingly familiar way. (James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave S, 903-6220. 11 am—5 pm, free.) Jen Graves