The New York Times

The New Museum’s fifth Triennial exhibition, titled “Soft Water Hard Stone,” is largely a product of lockdown. Much of the work by 40 international artists and collectives was made during the past two pandemic-strapped years. And it has, overall, a hoarded, shut-in feel. Colors are muted. Materials are scrappy, unpretty. (Concrete turns up a lot). Scale is generally small, and of the few monumental pieces, most are sculptures or installations in break-downable formats.

Certain themes recur: impermanence, erosion, disease, survival. Political vibes are buzzing everywhere, but are rarely instantly readable as such. The eye-candy suavity found in the heavily marketed current wave of figure painting seen a lot in galleries finds no place here. Nor, for that matter, does any other single “look.” Yet, despite being a grab bag of forms and styles, the 2021 Triennial is that rare thing, a big contemporary survey — it fills three floors of the museum, plus its lobby — with a cohesive texture and mood.

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Even more pervasive than actual infection at the height of Covid, though, was the sense of disorientation and instability caused by fear of it, and the show captures that... In a low-rise floor piece by the Turkish artist Hera Buyuktasciyan, stacks of industrial carpeting suggest the bases of Classical columns, though the columns themselves are missing.