T.J. Wilcox’s last appearance in New York was “In the Air,” a 2013–14 exhibition at the Whitney Museum that featured a stunning, 360-degree panoramic screen that turned Manhattan’s skyline into a circular world unto itself. His imagination remains at high altitudes in “Equivalents.” A cluster of six screens hangs from the ceiling, with views of an intensely blue, lightly clouded sky projected on them from above. There’s a mild sense of vertigo as you lift your face to look at them, trying to discern the fuzzy skywriting that telegraphs poetic messages. Other slices of sky hang on the walls, with a lenticular effect that makes the clouds move as you pass or change the angle of your gaze. Shifts of perspective simulate wind and weather; walls and ceiling stand in for the sky. As he did with “In the Air,” Wilcox has adapted an exhibition space to his own desire, recalibrating the relationship between the viewer’s body and the work of art. A secular equivalent to the heavenly frescoes on church domes, his installation maps a direct connection to transcendence. —Brian Droitcour
Pictured: Installation view of T.J. Wilcox, “Equivalents,” at Gladstone Gallery. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels. Photo David Regen.