Mary Bauermeister was born in 1934 in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. The family was accomplished: her father was a professor of genetics and anthropology; her mother, a singer. Mary studied both music and art. “I was musical, so I could have become a musician, too,” she said. “But I wasn’t allowed to play music in a minor key—I was considered too young.” Bauermeister turned to art, where she could use any key. During her years in New York City in the 1960s, she hosted evenings of avant-garde work and moved in circles that included Rauschenberg, Cage, Christo, and Nam June Paik. For a time she was married to Karlheinz Stockhausen, the “father of electronic music.” Bauermeister’s work didn’t quite fit into any movement but it is mesmerizing. She is perhaps best known for her “lens boxes,” which create strange scientific stratospheres out of crystals, mirrors, and pen-and-ink scribbles on white backgrounds. Her works made of smooth hewn stones are marvels, too, possessing the concentration of Aboriginal pattern making, the obsessional geometries of Escher. Giant-Chaos (2015)—stones and ink on particle board coated with volcanic sand—could be a primeval ocean floor, genetic skeins crawling with unstoppable life. This exhibition at Michael Rosenfeld looks at the use of stones in Bauermeister’s art. —Laura Jacobs