Huseyin Sami's Rhythm and Cuts is as close to a fuck-you as it gets in conceptual and contemporary art, short of the artist shanking you in the eyeballs. Which I'm sure is a thing somewhere. Though, please, don't interpret that as anything but praise.
When you enter the gallery, Sami's paintings (though that feels like a misnomer) jump out at you-or at least they did for me-with labial obviousness. The sensation that I was looking at a room full of vaginas did not wear off even after I left the gallery. And, even then, pushing through for more nuanced takeaways felt like I was doing that initial impression an injustice. If only because that impression is both funny, and oddly accusing. As if Sami's pieces were cunning Rorschachs throwing patrons back on themselves, daring them to speak simple truth, and more than happy to laugh at whatever knotty explanation the higher browed may or may not insist on.
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