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. 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—especially her “lens boxes,” which create strange scientific stratospheres out of crystals, mirrors, and rocks placed over enigmatic drawings. These silvery realms seem to aspire to the state of music. This exhibition at Michael Rosenfeld looks at the consistent use of rocks in Bauermeister’s art. —Laura Jacobs