Kate Manheim lives, works and dreams in a lair-like Wooster Street loft that evokes the bygone era of "Downtown" New York. Manheim is primarily known as a doyenne of avant-garde theater and is perhaps best remembered as Rhoda, a beloved changeling, equal parts muse and stand-in for playwright Richard Foreman. The couple collaborated in the Ontological-Hysteric Theater for sixteen years and since leaving the theater in 1987, Manheim has pursued a second life as a visual artist, realizing her vision in painting, collage, artist books and most recently through techniques of digital manipulation and printing.

A visitor to Lenore Malen's New Society for Universal Harmony could be forgiven for not knowing how to interpret the objects, texts, photographs and video on view.  They are displayed in a manner that is equal parts school science project, surrealist parlor game and historical re-enactment, leading to the assumption of a reality that may or may not be only an artist's fantasy.  The presentation is bookmarked between two thoroughly absorbing and maddeningly elusive figures:  Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, the 18th- century practitioner of magnet-induced psychic healing and hypnotism; and Dr. F.A. Mesmer, his 21st-century disciple.