Blue Republic at Peak Gallery -- N. Post July 10, 2004

I love this show. Blue Republic’s para-conceptual work is about life, art and economic and political imbalances around the globe, but you wouldn’t know it at first glance. At first glance you get a room full of jokey sculptures with smart, zippy titles, like a stepladder covered in Legos that’s titled "Beautiful Infections."

But then there are works like "Cambodia," where a pair of flipflops have been embedded into bag of plaster, which manages to symbolize in quiet, minimalist terms, a concise image of the country’s chronic state of impoverishment and immobility. Politically charged yes, but the Toronto-based collective (Anna Passakas and Radoslaw Kudlinski, who are both from Poland originally) avoid any socialist sloganeering. "Middle Eastern League: Israel vs. Palestine 0:0," for instance, is a pair of lush-looking still-life photographs of a dozen apples cut into squares and stacked like bricks. Both pictures are of the same apples, they’re just rearranged in slightly different rows, indicting the minor distinctions between team Israel and team Palestine, when you get right down to it.

As for the garbage on the floor that’s been swept away in circles with a radius of what might be called our own personal space (the span of an extended arm), it’s part of Blue's "Limited Activities" series, and another visual comment on how we keep our own yards clean of dirt at cost of everyone and everything else. --co

Waiting Room -- Works from Future, by Blue Republic runs until July 27 at Peak Gallery 23 Morrow Ave. www.peakgallery.com $50-$9000.