But the exhibition’s most poignant pieces may be those that pay tribute to Philip Roth’s approximate contemporary, the midcentury ping-pong champ Marty Reisman. In Sam Stewart’s Ping-Pong Table (2025), the artist models a functional bespoke table on Reis-man’s own, which can be used by visitors to the exhibition, allowing actual athletic energy to be let loose, in situ. The Marty Cabinet (2025), also by Stewart, serves as that table’s counterpart. Fashioned out of plywood, in the shape of a life-size man’s torso and legs, clad in a striped button-down shirt and pants, the wall-hung cabinet opens to reveal a shelving unit, on which extra ping-pong balls are kept. What would we see if we were able to open a man up to look inside him? To judge by Stewart’s piece, we would discover a single desire: to always retain a bit more energy within, ready to be spent whenever the moment calls for it.

-Excerpt From, 'You Want Me to Lift That?,' by Naomi Fry