“Conspicuous Unusable,” a show of seven artists, attests to the persistent romance with art that is barely art. Elegant in ensemble but uneven in parts, it has been organized by Johanna Bergmark, a Ph.D. candidate in art history at Columbia University, and Leah Pires, the gallery’s archivist. The title comes from Martin Heidegger, one of the last century’s pre-eminent philosophers, and refers to tools or materials that have somehow become conspicuous in their uselessness; it could also be taken as a cynical definition of art.

¶ 5:19 PM