Nicola Costantino. Fotografía de Res
para la revista Jewcy

It's not often that such a strong candidate for one of the season's worst shows emerges so early, but the New York debut of Nicola Costantino, a young hard-working Argentine artist, qualifies. Ms. Costantino's sensationally tasteless show skillfully cultivates various forms of Surrealist displacement and gimmicky realism to macabre effect.

The artist's spherical sculptures and wall reliefs are based on the casts of piled-together fetuses of horses, cows, pigs and sheep. The reliefs show the animals funneling through narrow channels as if through a birth canal or along an assembly line. A gallery statement reports that the animals were already dead, not killed for this work.

In an adjacent gallery is an installation in the guise of a fancy fashion boutique, which turns the tables on the human consumption of animal skin and flesh. The storelike display (with a fitting room) features garments, shoes, handbags and luggage skillfully made from extremely realistic latex copies of human skin. All the skin, in various shades, is dotted with precise renditions of nipples, navels or anuses, details that resonate with the current fashion mania for ostrich skin. Included are a corset whose many nipples have rings and dresses with collars of fake human hair. All are for sale.