Jacob Kassay: Untitled, 2013, glass and library book, 7 3/4 by 5 by 2/4 inches. Courtesy 303.
Jacob Kassay’s name may still conjure memories of the time a few years ago when his painting sold at auction for over 10 times its estimate. But the work in his first show with 303 moves away from his well-known metallic monochromes. Kassay’s shaped canvases incorporate textiles from paintings “lost, sold or otherwise disappeared.” Their ambiguous titles (“potential mate,” “intramural crowded self,” “swollen variable,” etc.), written in block letters along the edge of each painting, are fragments from overheard conversations. Equally subtle and intriguing are Kassay’s wall-mounted sculptures made up of wedges of glass neatly inserted into library books, ranging from political/historical texts to Mitch Albom’s famously sappy Tuesdays with Morrie.