Aaron Young, Freeformdome, 2003

P.S.1’s exhaustive group show, currently on display, aims at showing new artists who have arisen in the past five years.

It’s a risky proposition, and much has been made of the selection process and who was included or excluded. You get the feeling something’s missing among the videos of boys wrestling and drawings of airplanes. With a more diverse roster there might be less cuteness, brighter political statements.

But there are compelling arrangements of works, too. In one room, hearing “Get ’em! That’s a good boy. O, yeah” in Aaron Young’s “Good Boy” film complements the low chords in Brock Enright’s “Capitulation.” It may be unintentional, but there is no way you’re not going to spend some time with each one after hearing their curiously aggressive invitation.

Four drawings by Amy Wilson, titled “We Know It. We See it Anecdotally,” depict prescient girls. The girls march from drawing to drawing, eventually becoming skeletons whose whistles are drawn to spell “apocalypse.”

Carol Bove’s “Oriented Plane” is well placed with Tobias Putrih’s "Macula Series" as two studies in opacity. The former, a curtain of sterling silver, monofilament and Plexiglas, twinkled in and out of sight as sunlight streamed into the room. The latter is sheets of corrugated cardboard laid so precisely that from one angle, it is an undulating sculpture; from another, it is barely an outline.

Tobias Putrih, Macula Series L & A, 2004, cardboard

The politically informed work is best when it speaks softly. Huma Bhabha’s untitled sculpture uses clay, plastic, wire and wood to depict a person nearly flattened in prayer. Clay gravel leaks from his backside as if a response to his suppliant position. “Heaven,” by Justin Faunce, is a sunny paean to all things corporate, with characters and logos from GE, McDonald’s, Evian, Heinz Ketchup and Raisin Bran happily united on a glittery canvas.

Justin Faunce, Heaven, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in

Film and video makes a particularly strong showing, with well-developed narratives and compelling images. “The Dark Hearts,” a combination of video and mixed media by Sue de Beer, invites viewers to sit in a car to watch the drive-in movie of a Goth boy and a preppy girl. The boy, whose scene is titled “Morgue Entries,” puts on a spike collar while sweat beads up under his eyes. The girl, whose scene is “Gnome,” dons pearls. When they meet for a date, they exchange neckwear.

Sweat figures prominently in Mika Rottenberg’s film “Tropical Breeze,” as two women frantically churn out perspiration-tinged Kleenex in a van. Rottenberg zooms in on Heather, an Amazonian black woman responsible for soaking the tissues, as her hands grip the tiger-print steering wheel cover and her pores go into overdrive.

Mika Rottenberg, Tropical Breeze, 2004, video still from 3.5-minute digital

The violinist in King/Diaz de Leon’s digital video “Prepare a Place,” looks at his sheet music as though the music is happening there instead of from him. As he practices, you see the flashes of his career in a surprisingly moving, quick moment.

Jay King and Diaz de Leon, Prepare a Place, video

Other works make strategic use of one of P.S.1’s strengths: its manically varied interior. Bethany Bristow’s “Insinuate” lives up to its name. The installation, made of glass, feathers and corn syrup that look like melted pieces of a costume mask, sits in puddles at stairwell landings throughout the space. Ernesto Caivano’s “Into the Woods” spiders up the ceiling in another stairwell, daring you to stare as you trip down the steps.

It is hard to believe that Taryn Simon, who lit up the museum two years ago with her solo exhibit “The Innocents,” qualifies as a newcomer, but this time she keeps it simple with “John Kerry, September 10th, 2004,” taken from her shot for the New York Times Magazine. With his fish-patterned tie and hindsight as benefit, Kerry looks doomed.

P.S.1’s boiler room holds “Killing Moon 3 (Self portrait as Yeti in his lair)” by Marc Swanson. Reminiscent of the monster behind the diner in “Mulholland Drive,” the yeti sits, silent and white, behind hanging black tape and cages full of bottles in the subterranean space. The museum attendant on guard there called it his favorite work.

Marc Swanson, Killing Moon #3 (self portrait as a yeti in his lair), 2005

“Greater New York 2005” will show at P.S.1 in Long Island City through September 26th.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm? newsid=14258164&BRD=1864&PAG=461&dept_id=152800&rfi=8