Mechanics and Grace Found in Small Tasks.

There are so many ways to talk about the cultural differences between the performance and visual art worlds (and curators seem at pains to do so, emphasizing which ''context'' an artist should be seen in, so we poor huddled masses might better direct our gazes). Comparing and contrasting the consumer mores of each world is one of the more enjoyable methods for framing the conversation. Which group tends to be titillated by nudity and which bored, for example, or which will spend lots of time to see something but not lots of money, and vice versa? When the French choreographer Marie Cool cycled through ''Untitled (Prayers) 1996-2007,'' her collaboration with the artist Fabio Balducci during Performa 07, the sizable crowd at the Clocktower Gallery hustled for the best viewing positions, getting as close to the action as possible. Audience members only gradually siphoned off as the repetitive, reductive evening wore on. (The diminutive Ms. Cool does not so much perform as mechanically enact whimsical little tasks: sliding pieces of paper together into peaks on a tabletop or deftly pushing white string into fluid patterns.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]