David Salle's "Bearding the Lion in His Den"

In his evocatively meaningless art installation from 1977, David Salle manages to mathematically determine just how many elements an art work should have to seem important. The answer is four. A recreation of "Bearding the Lion in His Den" currently fills the back room at Deitch Projects (until March 24). Although it was made before Salle painted the towering collage work that made his name, "Bearding" is a 3-D form of the basic David Salle idea. That idea is to come as close as possible to making a work that means something without crossing the line. In the middle of...