Most publicity about the powerful Paul Thek retrospective at the Whitney has focused on the “meat” pieces, tabletop assemblages that incorporate exquisitely rendered wax models of chunks of human and animal flesh.

Thek moved on from those works to more performance-oriented pieces, for which he crafted special props that fall somewhere between costume, furniture and sculpture.  Made from simple, recognizable elements like chairs, lumber and glass, they’re irrationally deformed and decorated so that they have an unsettling totemic power.  And yet, like a lot of Thek’s work, they have a certain innocence too.

(Paul Thek, Untitled (Sedan Chair), 1968. Wood, wax, paint, metal, leather, glass, and plaster.)