John Yau blogs about the work of artist Leslie Baum.

Yau writes: "The fragment, which is one of the touchstones of Baum’s approach, conveys the possibility that there is no whole. It also suggests that the artist probably believes that we are born into a shattered world and that we will likely shatter it further. It seems to me that Baum is drawn to fragments that resist identification, which I suspect is because she isn’t interested in either parody or citation, but in what might lie beyond them… [Baum] isn’t interested in foregrounding her work either as a display of faux-virtuosity or postmodern commentary… I admire her resistance to going down well-trod paths or contextualizing it in an institutionally approved discourse."