In other bodies of work, Abeles aims for a Dada-inspired poetry. A group of sensitive and quirky assemblages incorporating letters, photographs and even pigeons' feet in kimonolike structures are what she calls "vestments as shrines of the investigation of the Self." An interrelated series of sculptures, assemblages and photocollages, "The Image of St. Bernadette," analyzes the myth-making process of the Roman Catholic church, including elaborate "sales kits" for the saint's souvenirs and a rotating dispenser for locks of her hair.

Abeles also obsessively transforms her personal history into art. Her new work, seen at Turner/Krull, reveals the recent dissolution of her marriage in a series of funny, exhibitionistic assemblages. In Cocktail Shirts she tries on a scorned wife's revenge, transforming cut-up fragments of her ex's starched white shirts into a prim frock with scorch-mark patterns. The show also included the series of photographs, "Experiment for Myself as Other" (1979), in which she took self-portraits by striking at her camera's shutter release with various objects, including a push broom, a plumbing pipe and a yardstick. Oblivious to her onslaught, the camera simply takes the picture, recording the crazed facial expressions of her quixotic combat.