THE NEW YORK TIMES, Oct 14, 2005

Tracking Suburbia; Do You Like Stuff?
Swiss Institute
495 Broadway, near Spring Street
SoHo
Through Oct. 22

"Tracking Suburbia" and "Do You Like Stuff?" are separate, conceptually engaging exhibitions that focus on contemporary materialism.

The first follows the lead of Ed Ruscha's photographic project "Every Building on Sunset Strip." It features a more-than-30-foot-long digitally processed color photograph by Jean-Frédéric Schnyder that depicts every building on the road between the Swiss towns of Zug and Baar. Peter Fischli and David Weiss offer a series of vivid, paperback-size color photographs documenting nondescript buildings and traffic intersections in Swiss towns. Each in a series of ceramic medallions, molded to resemble paper plates by Boris Rebetez, bears a small glazed image of an ordinary modern building; and Urs Lüthi's photographic works from the 70's juxtapose images of suburban houses with portraits of himself in drag.

"Do You Like Stuff?" is more various and understatedly humorous. Exemplifying a growing trend in art about eBay, Barb Choit presents a surprisingly interesting photographic archive of banal things that have been put up for auction on eBay. David Adamo has installed a forensic study table documenting his surveillance of an acquaintance named Macgregor. Frank Olive's "Useful Things" presents 100 cheap items, including toothpaste, tape and a pencil; he invites you to take one free.