Caitlin Keogh’s coolly ornamental paintings — acrylic canvases with flat, baroque line-drawing patterns — are tricky. They’re highly decorative, opulently so, and make repeated reference to Christian Dior, which is apt, considering Keogh’s mannequin-like figures and Dior’s interest in silhouette. Some have S&M flourishes (or dismemberments more terrifying), a kind of subversive and dedicated decoration, resistant to models of good taste. The show’s eponymous image, Loose Ankles (2016), is a disembodied hand, holding a lit cigarette, protrudes calmly from between two disembodied feet in yellow hush puppy heels. They’re suggestively wrapped with knotted rope. Like many indulgences, the combination of Keogh’s erotic charge and intellectual distance is troublingly exciting. NOAH DILLON
Installation view, “Caitlin Keogh: Loose Ankles,” 2016, at Bortolami. Courtesy of the gallery.
Through October 29, 2016. 520 West 20st Street, New York, 212 727 2050
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