‘Without Time—Without Body—Without Place,” Wolfgang Laib’s (b. 1950) first solo outing at Sean Kelly Gallery, achieves the spareness implied by its title while still flounting its content. Perhaps the repetitions of the title refer to the fact that this German artist tends to work in series, which have not changed dramatically over the years. The eponymous centerpiece consists of an expansive, garage-size grid of “rice mountains” —small, conical mounds of rice placed on the floor — which is interrupted in the center by a row of five mounds of yellow hazelnut pollen. (The artist spends his summer months harvesting the pollen by hand.) Certainly the dash of pale yellow amidst the pale white rice mounds makes for a serenely beautiful installation. Yet one can’t help noting that the work is, contrary to the title, concerned with time — especially in how, over time, the presence of visitors slowly alters the mounds — the body, or shape of the piece and the individual piles that form it, as well as the specific place in which it has been set up. The discrepancy doesn’t affect the one experience of the piece, except perhaps to point to a variety of spiritual posturing that some viewers may find about as convincing as the Buddhist pieties uttered at times by actors or other especially materialistic Westerners. Somewhat less striking are the six “Rice Houses” occupying the floor of an adjacent room — four long, house-shaped logs of black Indian granite with rice scattered around the edges, and two orange logs without rice. A third room contains one Mr. Laib’s lacquered wood “Staircases,” an approximately 10-foot high wooden staircase coated in a maroon lacquer. Like the other pieces in this show, it is pleasing to look at, and, depending on one’s point of view, either ascends to a sublime nowhere or simply hits the wall.

Until October 13 (528 W. 29th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-239-1181).