STUCK IN THE MIDDLE.

Are Franz West's "Pa[beta]stucke" sculptures or props? Either way, his portable objects are up for grabs at two shows this summer. Between June 23 and August 19, the Kunstverein Braun-schweig presents diverse works by the Fluxus-inspired West, including early and recent installations, and at the Kunsthaus Zug from June 10 to August 19, works by West show alongside Wiener Werkstatte furniture and paintings by Klimt, Schiele, Gerstl, and Kokoschka, all from the Kunsthaus collection.

West of Zug, but east of West, IVAM Valencia presents the abstract "landscapes" of Zao Wou-Ki (b. 1921), between May 3 and July 1. Some seventy drawings and paintings spanning fifty-two years detail the Beijing-born, Paris-based artist's quest for the harmonious balancing of opposites: emptiness and plenitude, stasis and dynamism, Eastern tradition and Western modernism. Much further south at the City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, between July 7 and September 16, Gavin Hipkins's photographic project "The Homely" will document the complexities of Pakeha (i.e., non-Maori New Zealanders) living, caught between traditional culture and colonial influence; and at the Fondation Beyeler, Basel, between June 10 and September 23, "Ornament and Abstraction" willchart the ground shared by those supposed opposites, decoration and abstraction. Exhibits in this extensive show include historic pieces by Mondrian, Albers, Pollock, and Klimt and contemporary work by Shirin Neshat, Rosemarie Trockel, and Philip Taaffe.