JULY 11, 2008 — ART REVIEW

Crossing the Line
An Exhibition in Sound and Print

June Kelly
591 Broadway, near Houston Street, SoHo
Through Aug. 1

Enlivening the standard summer group show with the addition of sound, “Crossing the Line” pairs small prints with music, readings, interviews and other audio selections. Jeff Gordon, who has been recording visual artists for two decades, is the organizer. The prints are small and the recordings are long, but the combination emphasizes the art world’s conversational nature.

In one recording made by Mr. Gordon, the dealer Ivan Karp reminisces about his formative years with the Leo Castelli gallery and the early days of the SoHo art scene. (A photograph shows Mr. Karp sitting on the steps of his West Broadway gallery, OK Harris.) The artist Eric Fischl, in conversation with the writer Barbara MacAdam, talks about the controversy over his sculpture “Tumbling Woman” (exhibited at Rockefeller Center on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and abruptly removed from display). A recent print by Mr. Fischl, “Untitled (Couple Wading Into Water)” (2008), anchors his discussion of the figure.

In other pairings the voice becomes an extension of artistic practice. A black-and-white lithograph by the painter Path Soong is accompanied by the artist’s measured, monotone recitation of her poem “Hillside Meditation.” And in the tape-recorder-obsessed Andy Warhol’s version of Zen, the words “uh yes” and “uh no” are looped in 15-minute segments — speech filler elevated to hypnotic monologue.

KAREN ROSENBERG