In a sequence of six photos by South African artist Robin Rhode, an acrobatic mathematician contorts his body to project a ‘Lute of Pythagoras,’ a series of pentagrams locked together in pleasing mathematical proportion. At the gallery entrance, Rhode quotes Swiss architect and urban planner Le Corbusier’s assertion that humanity attempts to save itself from chaos through geometry. Rhode’s efforts to better humanity by joining art and geometry feel poignantly quixotic. (On view at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea through Feb 24th).
