A figure with a body made of rebar hunches over an iPad in Siebren Versteeg’s solo show at Bitforms Gallery, scrolling through social media, distributing ‘likes’ willy nilly. Just as a real body is not necessary to consume content, existing media is sufficient for making more art – on the walls, paintings made with software that mines Internet images mimic the form of Jay DeFeo’s famously massive ‘Rose’ painting, built up from years of accumulated paint. (At Bitforms Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 28th).
