Be dazzled at the Bronx Museum’s latest show

Let there be light!

Or, more specifically, a couple of lamps, a few fans, two gigantic spheres and a ton of bric-a-brac all jumbled together.

That’s what you get at the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ current show featuring one of the U.S.’ 2013 entries at the Venice Biennale, a high-culture bonanza on the low-elevation island.

The ponderous piece, called Triple Point (Planetarium), by Sarah Sze, is the only work in a large room on the second floor of the free museum. Most of the chamber is dark, except for lights inside the piece itself, creating an effect of approaching-the-holiest-of-holies when you peer at it.

The tall, wide work houses all kinds of low-tech, man-made objects and sits on a circle drawn on the floor. Here is what a rough tour cruising the perimeter of the piece is like, starting from a random point.

First, there is a workbench cluttered with a lamp, wiry structures, some rocks and a box of raisins.

Moving along, you find a picture of a seemingly random highway panorama inside an oversized frame.

After that, there is a mad protuberance of wooden sticks coming out of one of the spheres. And, oh, yeah, some Petri dishes dangling near the highway panorama and a fan perpetually blowing onto a tray of water.

Next comes another sphere, with balled-up newspaper dangling in the middle and partly surrounded by an amphitheater-shaped structure with nature shots pasted on the steps.

File it all under things that make you go, “Huh?”

The Bronx Museum says Triple Point (Planetarium) “investigates the value we place on objects and explores how objects ascribe meaning to the places and times we inhabit.”

Ascribe meaning!? Investigate value?! Deep thoughts, indeed. Be ready for some serious brow-furrowing if you take a visit.

– Shant Shahrigian

Triple Point (Planetarium) is on display until Sunday, Aug. 24. The Bronx Museum, located at 1040 Grand Concourse, is open from Thursday to Sunday starting at 11 a.m. and closing at different times. Entry is free.