Mac Premo, “Same Squared” (2007)

Mac Premo sounds like a new computer offered by Apple, but the world from which his work derives is distinctly pre-digital. His first solo show, “my systems are in your hands,” at Pavel Zoubok until February 9, is filled with his curious Surrealist wooden constructions. With handles, levers, and lenses sticking out of them, the works suggest functioning mechanical or optical devices, but they turn out to be lovingly crafted enigmas in the noble tradition of Duchamp, Cornell, and Rauschenberg. Pencils, toys, Scrabble tiles, postage stamps, engineering diagrams, matchboxes, wallpaper, and numbered spy-holes all make appearances here. These are hardly unfamiliar components in this particular sort of collage-derived work, but Premo manages something both personal and mysterious in his work, with each resin-coated creation achieving something utterly unique.

Courtesy the artist and Pavel Zoubok Gallery