Friend of Ours

On view at Rental Gallery, “Friend of Ours” highlights contemporary occurrences of trompe l’oeil in work by 16 artists including Rashid Johnson, Borna Sammak, and Anicka Yi. Through abstraction, digital manipulation, simulacrum—or some combination of the three—the dense and varied sculptures, paintings, and photographs on display force us to question our understanding of reality.

In a bronze sculpture by Mungo Thomson (pictured), for instance, what appears to be a stack of Amazon boxes takes on a different connotation in light of its title: Snowman (2019).