Edition: U.S. / Global

ART IN REVIEW; Darren Almond

Published: October 20, 2000

Matthew Marks Gallery

523 West 22nd Street, Chelsea

Through tomorrow

Darren Almond, one of the more cerebral members of the group known as the Young British Artists, seems intent on conveying the wonder of time and space by means that, at first, offer little poetic potential. In his New York debut, he does this in several ways, continuing to work with clocks and modes of travel, sometimes simultaneously.

In the first gallery, prepare to be stopped in your tracks by the lumbering semaphore of ''Mean Time,'' a digital clock the size of a large shipping container, which marks off the seconds, minutes and hours with loud, oddly soothing whirrings and rhythmic ka-chunks. Either the sveltely silent light-emitting diodes couldn't be enlarged sufficiently, or the artist intentionally reverted to a noisier, more primitive clockwork.

In a second gallery, large diagrams replicate the five night skies of the ''Mean Time'' ocean voyage from London to New York. Their almost photographic sense of infinite space becomes especially expansive once you realize that they are meticulously handmade, the color of each speck matched to the light tone of a particular star.

But the show's heart is ''Schwebebahn,'' a 12-minute video shot from the motorman's cab of a suspended monorail as it travels around, and above, Wuppertaal, Germany. Projected upside down and run backward, moving between color and black-and-white to the sound of somewhat loopy techno music, it creates much more than just an engaging spatial conundrum: it seems to glide effortlessly among different worlds, time periods and film styles, particularly between a dark, slightly foreboding past and a sun-dappled space-age future. Low-key and scientifically inclined, Mr. Almond is also, at his best, a mesmerist. ROBERTA SMITH