Fossils From a Future Apocalypse

The Romanian artist Andra Ursuța’s new show at David Zwirner Gallery, “Retina Turner,” consists of 16 large ovoid slabs of cast glass — her Private Dancers . Each encases a spectral, half-formed figure that appears to be partially submerged beneath the sculpture’s surface: a skeleton hand, a spinal column, other remnants. They are like fossils of an alien species, artifacts of a civilization that died mid-sentence amid some volcanic catastrophe. They represent a double exposure of loss and endurance, strange archaeology and cold prophecy.

The various lineages of Ursuța’s work are unmistakable. She has taken the oval format from Lucio Fontana’s egg-shaped paintings, and like Fontana she shares the urge to turn the oval into a portal, a cosmic slit — but while Fontana gestured toward in