Arlene Shechet makes use of both the elegant and the crude: the sculptural material in her recent show ranged from silk, suede and handmade paper to plaster, sand-cast iron and concrete. The objects she devises are familiar in that they emphasize touch and show evidence of direct making, but they are also exotic, because their forms and subjects are Buddhist.

Puja (2001), the piece that gave this exhibition its name, is a diminutive assortment of objects arranged, for the show, on an eye-level shelf. According to the checklist, puja is a Sanskrit word meaning “the ceremonial setting out of objects.” Such a term could be handy for many contemporary art installations that call attention to the artist’s process of placing things just so. In this case the objects are a crude cast-iron Buddha, a finely detailed silver Buddha , a sepia colored rubber Ganesh figure, several blue glass lotus flowers, a tine porcelain case with a long, dark rod emerging from it and a suede pouch to store them allin. Everything is under 2 inches tall and thus quite portable. The set is made in an edition of 150. It’s arrangement here looked casual, but the “setting out of objects” for this work would be the purchaser’s responsibility and pleasure.

Puja as a concept was central to the show, but the most visually impressive pieces were Cave Buddha (1999), a 31-inch-tall Hydrocal sculpture surfaced with acrylic paint skins, and Pool (1998-2001), an installation of blue-and-white cast-paper vases imprinted with temple floor plans, each case poised upon an inverted white version of itself. The Buddha sits on a low concrete footed platform. His back is a patchwork of color. His hands merge into his knees and his knees blur into his gown because of what looks like successive pours of Hydrocal and paint in pale earth colors, ending in a lacy, scalloped bottom edge. The Buddha’s face is obscured, which adds to a feeling of calm that viewers might share by imagining the waves of liquid coursing down the figure, adding weight and a sense of passing time.

Pool consisted of about 30 doubled vessels, in a generous variety of graceful pottery shapes–long-necked vases, double gourd shapes, open bowls, etc. Shechet does not pursue the idea of reflection; the meeting point of the doubled forms is at many different levels, precluding the idea of a smooth water surface. Maybe the white vessels are ghosts, or the “real” pots are separated from the earth by a purifying layer, or possibly there is some specific Buddhist meaning. Each case carries its own expressive tone, determined by its lightness or darkness, crispness or softness and by the stability or precariousness of the white vessel standing on its rim. Sometimes the blue patterns are clearly floor plans, but in other cases they suggest an urban façade or read as decoration.
In the gallery’s back room, three painting on handmade paper in Shechet’s “Flow Blue” series were more easily discernible as maps or plans. There are overlays: one also sees a mountain or a mandala or the moon. And maybe here the import of the floor plans is clearer than on the vases. They are ideal (because not yet realized) and transparent.