Terence Koh is at the Mary Boone Gallery right now performing a piece called “nothingtodoterencekoh,” in which he wears a white suit and crawls on his knees in endless clockwise circles around a giant pile of rock salt.  When I visited last week the artist’s clothes were worn from wear and he was focused but tired.  His tiny shuffling motions seemed penitential and weirdly pointless.  The monkish purity of the spectacle bothered me.

I wish that Koh had filled the gallery with salt and left it at that.  The large, low mound obstructs views and movement through the gallery, and highlights its stark geometry.  I visited late in the afternoon, when light from the roof lantern gave the mineral a shifting, glittery presence.  The physicality of this simple material put the performance to shame.