Two-person gallery shows can be tricky for curators, audiences and artists. Solo shows let work speak on its own terms as the efforts of a single creator, and group shows can be arranged into a harmonious whole. But in two-person shows, the works often either clash (making both bodies of work suffer) or blend in a way that creates unintended contexts and affects the meanings of the works. Zeitgeist Gallery started the year with a two-person exhibition that got it just right. Alicia Henry’s The Walk was a characteristically powerful display of the artist’s felt masks and doll forms that completed a hat trick for the Henry, who’d closed 2015 with strong contributions to Tinney’s Topography exhibition as well as to the Phantom Bodies show at the Frist. Still, San Francisco artist Karen Barbour was the show’s biggest surprise. Her How May I Help You featured illustrated dream imagery that was as enigmatic as Henry’s display, but used its own distinctive visual language. JOE NOLAN
Best Duo Exhibition
Alicia Henry’s The Walk and Karen Barbour’s How May I Help You at Zeitgeist Gallery
Installation View: Karen Barbour's How May I Help You
