The Shaker conspiracy Michael Queenland connects the dots at ICA BY IAN PAIGE

Michael Queenland is just trying to figure it all out. Like a paranoid schizophrenic realizing that everything’s part of the plot, the Californian-turned-New Yorker stays open to whatever threads of existence come his way and then obsessively attempts to connect the dots — as if to say, "See, I told you this wasn’t a coincidence."

"Michael Queenland: Photographs, Sculptures and Shaker Classics" benefits and suffers from multiple personality disorder. The original Los Angeles exhibition to which new ICA director Toby Kamps was drawn is housed in the front of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. But just a few paces to the back gallery reveal an all-new and worthwhile collaboration between the artist and MECA. Steps echo in the cavernous hall, surrounded by ghostly white furniture.

Now it’s your turn to put the pieces together. A little detective work let’s you know you’re dealing with Shaker design here. It turns out Queenland has been fascinated by deviant groups such as the Shakers ever since growing up a Davidian (yup, like Waco). These days, we tend to think of Shaker furniture as a Martha-Stewart favorite exemplifying American purity, but history reveals that the Shakers were largely persecuted for their strange ideas of gender and racial equality. Oh yeah, and they thought the world was about to end, much like our Davidian friends.

Queenland and six MECA design students worked together all summer studying in one of the few remaining Shaker communities at Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester. Learning the ins and outs, Queenland and company set out to create oversized versions of these pieces. The result is eerie, like you just walked up the beanstock to the giant’s ghost house. A simple cutting-board feels more like a paddle or a weapon; a washbasin starts to look more like a coffin.

The other half of the show features previous work by the artist. The installations here share a similar starkness to the Shaker furniture. Mostly white and unpretentiously constructed, the sculptures border on being downright shoddy. "Untitled (Fly Aloof Flaubert)" gets its name from a combination of crossword puzzle answers that caught Queenland’s attention. The artist assembled the letters with chopsticks on unfinished Styrofoam and plywood all precariously balanced on what looks like a piece of Salvation Army furniture.

Similarly presented is a tabletop with found objects from the bargain bin of the local second-hand shop. In 2004’s "Memorabilia," a photograph, Steven King paperback, and T-shirt are all united by imagery of hands. Opposite this grouping are the back cover of a Steven King book, the author rocking out with a guitar, a book opened to portraits of Billie Holiday, and a Benny Goodman album opened to reveal a past owner’s obsessive underlining and denoting of all musicians on the record in red ink. Queenland draws from the joys of searching for the perfect pair of corduroys and mutates the experience into a table full of evidence of an unknown conspiracy.

Should the viewer feel slighted by the lack of artistic technique employed in the pieces, bear in mind Queenland offers up two beautifully executed photo installations. Both consist of framed 11-x-14 photos arranged in a grid. "Traps, Escapes, Entropic Rehearsals, Black Holes, Impoverished Magic and Other Ephemera: #5 (Broom on Apple Crate)" (got that?) arranges a noirish series of abandoned constructions involving photographic parlor tricks. A hole in the ceiling, when turned upside-down, looks like a chasm in the floor. Packing peanuts seem to swarm in a cardboard box. A dark scene of a crumbling kitchen contains violent interruptions in the Polaroid exposure as though the photo itself is crumbling.

"Untitled #1-9" (2005) takes the same organizational grid one step beyond, abandoning the noir murkiness with exceptionally developed photographs involving reflective glass and cascading bubbles captured and frozen in time. The arrangement is perfectly balanced within the grid. While maintaining the themes of deviance, chicanery, and the ephemeral found in his 3-D work, Queenland proves his worth as a professional artist with his photography.

The bipolar nature of the exhibit is tied together where it starts, at the front gallery window of the ICA. "Standing Brooms Until All or None Fall Over" (2002, reconstructed for 2005) is a precursor and convenient connecting point to the artist’s fascination with the Shakers. Fourteen flat-end brooms (a Shaker invention) are balanced on a platform grid. The natural course of events so far leaves three still standing and the gallery-goer can consult a monitor for a document of progress. There is a binary nature to the work: standing/fallen, magical/mundane, art/"my six-year-old could do that." All the pieces in the exhibition seem to have intrinsic but unclear connections, like a crossword puzzle with just a few answers left blank. Perhaps Queenland is delusional for following through with these imaginary events, but viewers will leave with the strange sensation that maybe they are the crazy ones for not noticing these bizarre coincidences in everyday life.

Ian Paige can be reached at ianpaige@gmail.com