Kwangho Lee‘s first-ever New York solo exhibition, which recently invaded the ground floor of Salon 94 Design‘s newly established permanent uptown HQ, is called Infinite Expansion. And in a way that’s the best phrase we can think of to describe most of the pieces displayed over five floors of the enormous former townhouse, no matter who they’re by. Each mini-exhibition shows an artist who has often dwelled on similar processes or forms throughout their career but has infused them each time with a sense of the new. These include the late Donald Judd, whose basic planar chairs were tweaked ad infinitum throughout his life and are here shown in a rainbow of powder-coated RAL, and Max Lamb, who shows several works in the polystyrene foam that has preoccupied him for years. But the star here is Lee, who has been simultaneously exploring two materials throughout his career: enameled copper and knitted rope, which, at the gallery, takes on an increasingly interesting array of forms, like tangled, ceiling-hung pendants; a drooping, slightly foreboding elevator ceiling installation; and, at the opening, knitted handbags for each of the gallery’s directors. Lee’s sense of color, which he achieves in the enameled works by applying crushed colored glass to brass or copper sheets that are then fired in a kiln, remains a delight, with new hues like Lik-M-Aid purple (and, frankly, How to Live With Objects green!) popping up here and there.

Kwangho Lee

Max Lamb

Donald Judd