It feels at first like Tom Friedman’s exhibition of new work, on view at Luhring Augustine in Bushwick, might be playing a trick on viewers. But it isn’t smoke and mirrors, it’s paint and Styrofoam. All of it; there’s nothing but those two elements adorning the gallery walls and floor. Yet it appears like there must be something more in the mix. There’s so much precision, so much detail. A microphone, chair and guitar without strings stand in one corner. It takes pretty close inspection to confirm that the wood grain is, in fact, the work of a paintbrush. In faux-assemblage wall pieces like Blue (all 2014) and Toxic Green Luscious Green — each comprised of a single color, with a dense section of detritus either clinging to the top edge or falling to the bottom — it seems unbelievable that everything collected in the messy, three-dimensional pile of scraps is only made out of the materials proclaimed by the exhibition’s title. The apple-core, the slice of pizza, the paper plane — all from flimsy Styrofoam?

Since the early ‘90s Friedman has been exhibiting his brand of inventively fabricated sculptures, which have drawn comparisons to 1960s Conceptualism, Arte Povera and Minimalism. But his work fits into none of these categories completely. Taking many different forms, they are unified by the nature of the material they are made from — inexpensive, ubiquitous and disposable — and the great care Friedman takes in crafting them. Earlier works (not on display here) have included an untitled self-portrait from 2000, appearing to be the artist’s body splattered on the floor after a horrific accident; it is painstakingly cut out of colored construction paper. Another self-portrait is carved out of a single aspirin. Thirty-thousand toothpicks stuck together form a giant starburst. Fishing line, sugar cubes, plastic cups, chewed bubblegum, roasting pans and soap inlaid with pubic hair have all been fodder for Friedman’s transformative hand.

As with those earlier pieces, here it’s in making something to marvel at, using very ordinary elements, that delights viewers at the outset. Despite one’s skepticism, assistants at the gallery assure that all the works in “Paint and Styrofoam” are made purely from these two resources. And the works here really are marvelous, but for reasons beyond their material trickery.

Each wall piece is monochromatic — frame (also carved of Styrofoam) and all. Tonal variations are created by texture and shape. What becomes clear is that Friedman is, in effect, painting with form. In Blue Styrofoam Seascape, the distinction between ocean and sky is made by the cusp of a subtle, beveled vertex that juts out towards the viewer, drawing a horizon directly across the baby blue surface. The sea darkens as it recedes, forming a perfect division between water and air.

Similarly, the self-portrait created for this exhibition is painted meticulously. The artist wears glasses and has a feather in his hat, looking out over his shoulder. It’s also painted in a blindingly bright canary yellow. Detail comes from the paint’s texture, as it does in the work exhibited directly to the left. That painting, Night, is recognizable to the viewer at once. It’s Van Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece Starry Night replicated exactly, down to the folded canvas edges, but painted not on canvas, of course, and devoid of any color except for a tarry blackish-blue.

A bite-sized nick in the corner of the outwardly standard white plinth, upon which a bulbous, Pepto-Bismol pink sculpture snakes toward the ceiling, is the only moment that Friedman reveals what’s behind the curtain. About a foot off the ground, the break in the stand reveals just a few inches of the foamy, aerated plastic that’s all around, but covered everywhere else in a solid layer of acrylic paint.

Friedman refers to the wall works as “sculptures of paintings.” With the chipped plinth in mind, one can’t help but feel that the floor works are likewise sculptures of sculptures. They imitate what is traditionally found in an exhibition space: paint, canvases, frames, pedestals, items of worth and value because of their material expense, maker’s name, or historical significance. Some of these elements are here, legitimately. Others are a careful emulation of what we expect to see. But each piece asks to be questioned, opening exploration into the space between what is actually present and what can be seen.

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As Marx claimed, in the introduction to his Critique of Political Economy, consumption is production. Taking this as his premise, Bruce Ferguson, Dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, has curated a show which is at once understatement and spectacle at Mary Boone .  In the world of art and leisure, commodity and concept collude to leave behind artifacts, treasures, objets d’art.

In this group show, the aesthetics of interior design expose the world of exchange contemporary artists find themselves compelled to compete in.  The logic is simple: people buy things.  Lamps, chairs, pots and various vessels, et cetera, even art.  It’s clear that, despite their initial appearance as everyday items, these are Artworks, meant to be appreciated for their application of skill and judgment, but not used in any functional sense.   They are precious.

In the gallery, one feels the splendid quality of what money could buy.  Art, here, reflects the domestic object, taking its outward appearances, such as table or bench, but dispensing with its more bodily functions.  The discourse on the found object comes to a grinding halt and we wallow in the allure of style itself.

Everything fits snugly into a decorator’s paradise.  Ken Price’s erotically charged clay pieces are colorful in a ruinous way.  It is Rodin by way of Ren and Stimpy, their forms spotted with a sensual leper-like skin of paints. Sachio Hitare’s immaculately lacquered “Obi Bench” is an orange form curving and bending along the floor recalling the luxury of custom car culture in its precision and ease.  Josiah McElheny’s “Total Reflective Abstractions” lingers in the ether of decadent pleasure: mirrored objects on a mirrored tabletop, pristine and perfect to the point of fascination, which is arguably what the obsession is all about.

These items are selling themselves.  The rich surfaces and studied arrangement excite desire as they mimic the representations of actual objects, objects whose use value has been omitted, art objects by default.

Two artists stand out as voices of clarity in the muddle of desire.   Tom Friedman’s school chair, drilled into skeletal oblivion, sits dolefully on the edge of the gallery.  It seems unconcerned about attracting buyers (though a $95,000 price tag and subsequent sale does affirm the position of the artist and gallery).  It’s a morbid irony that the violence he inflicts on an ordinary chair has been trophied to such a degree.  The addition of Lee Bontecou’s work seems odd at first.  Bontecou’s rough-hewn formalism spits in the eye of décor yet in this setting becomes theatrical prop, adding a dose of agitation to the ether of opulence. The work is subject to adoration and adulation, hung on the wall as a symbol of deeply felt sentiment coupled with the ethos of the struggling artist.  It’s meant to anchor the mood and tenor of a room that is otherwise too clean, too surgical, too meticulous.  Its inclusion transforms it to an object of subjugation, effectively transforming Bontecou’s work into an interior design device, retro-fitted to the same rigors of fashion, seasonal tastes, and charms.

The show is great for those seeking an affirmation of values based on exclusivity and the attainment of “high” goods.  Ferguson has definitely exemplified the sense of slippage that exists today between art forms and craftwork.  That alone could be the most redeeming quality of the show.  But this is a manipulation of the senses, a filling of the void of unease and uncertainty created by the slippage we experience, with objects of desire.  This is what commercialism is largely about, but not necessarily art.  The show does not provide a forum for the contemplation of ideas on objecthood or the function of art versus, or in dialogue with, functional design.  With the exception of Friedman and Bontecou, whose works do address the fundamentals of form and our expectations of functionality, the show exemplifies a marketplace where the tools of production satisfy the accumulated tastes of the elite.  Not many people would posses such finery, even in today’s luxury-oriented market.

This is what exposes and undoes the potential strength of the show, what Kant refers to as a lack of “delineation”.  What does it mean to curate if not to pass judgments on taste?  What does it say of taste, or judgment, when we find the purely sensational on parade? There is simply no interrogation to be found.  The exhibition presents art as decoration without challenge.   Which seems rather flip. One hopes that the overseers of the art world retain the gumption to engage us in our consumption of the beautiful in a meaningful way, rather than merely purvey fine goods.  We sit in awe of the exquisite but undergo a loss of power; it is grist for the slippage, however neatly organized.

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