TO SUNDAY

Re-Imaging Body and Space in Contemporary Dutch Art: Margi Geerlinks and Jean-Marc Spaans

A young girl clothed only in panties, crocheting herself a breast. A woman looking into the distance while knitting the legs and pelvis of a child, her flesh-toned wool skein dangling to the floor. A Geppetto-like figure whose sewing machine holds spools of pink and peach thread, calmly and gently stitching a young boy into being as he sprawls across a clinically white table (Pinocchio, pictured). Over the past half-decade, Margi Geerlinks’ doctored photos have combined images and props to produce surreal, startling tableaux that ask us to think about the construction of identity and the way we dress ourselves in representations of reality. Though some have pegged the work as referencing bioengineering controversies, Geerlinks’ photos also hark back to older, more fundamental concerns: the way youth yearns for age and age for youth, how parents gently but firmly shape their children. Only three of her images are on display at “Re-Imaging Body and Space in Contemporary Dutch Art: Margi Geerlinks and Jean-Marc Spaans”—all three involving jarringly innocent-looking Dutch youngsters—along with three works by Spaans, whose photographic scenes of light in motion give the ephemeral beams a sculptural solidity. The works are on view from noon to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, at Fusebox, 1412 14th St. NW. Free. (202) 299-9220. (Garance Franke-Ruta)