'PINK PANTHER'
Smith-Stewart at Kumukumu Gallery
42 Rivington Street,
Lower East Side
Through Oct. 31
Some art dealers forced to give up their leases in the dismal economy are taking cues from a current retail phenomenon, the pop-up store. The Smith-Stewart gallery, formerly of Stanton Street, inaugurates a nomadic program with a group exhibition based on the color pink. The art is cheerfully postfeminist (as you might expect) and mostly new (a pleasant surprise).
The installation makes the most of the gallery's railroad-style layout. The show is front-loaded with seductive works like Marilyn Minter's photograph ''Pink Snow'' (2009), with its explosion of sugary crystals, and Kate Gilmore's video ''Every Girl Loves Pink'' (2006).
In her piece Ms. Gilmore tries to squirm her way out of an enclosed corner filled with blush-colored paper. Wearing ballerina tights and high heels, she kicks her legs against a plywood wall. Eventually she slumps, defeated, into her cotton-candy cave.
Standouts among the works made for this show include Lisa Kirk's abstraction, ''painted'' with fire and makeup products on an oval linen canvas, and Huma Bhabha's intense, magenta pastel of an alienlike female head. At the lighter end of the spectrum are Elif Uras's shapely vase, decorated to look like the torso of a belly dancer, and Brian Lund's drawings based on stage diagrams from ''Cabaret.''
Some artists seem uninspired by the theme, or hamstrung by the crowded, provisional setup. (Jason Fox, Jen DeNike and Mika Rottenberg are all capable of better.) But on the whole ''Pink Panther'' makes a good argument for the roving-gallery model and, for that matter, the monochromatic show. KAREN ROSENBERG
