Andra Ursuţa’s rambunctious, haunted shows sure don’t look like anyone else’s. Her second solo at Ramiken Crucible is partly an all-out assault on the gallery format, of which Ramiken is a small, rough, downscale approximation to begin with. She has opened the gallery’s interior to the outdoors simply by knocking out its immense plate-glass windows, a bit of institutional critique worthy of Michael Asher, if somewhat more violent. (Shards of shattered glass remain.)
Meanwhile, in a dioramalike display, the gallery’s back wall has been rammed and partly collapsed by a vehicle opulently encrusted with silver foam. This gleaming, quasi-comical thing-in-itself evokes both an ancient cart (a pair of boots embedded in it suggest that it once carried a ceremonial figure) and NASA’s moon rover.
In between these two acts of possible terrorism are three life-size Social Realist marble sculptures. The news release provides salient facts and political motivation: the sculptures are based on a news photograph of an unknown Romanian Gypsy woman awaiting deportation from France that Ms. Ursuţa, who is Romanian, contracted to have made in China.