BROOKLYN MUSEUM: 'THE EYE OF THE ARTIST: THE WORK OF DEVORAH SPERBER' The marvelously zany installation artist Devorah Sperber recreates classics with a pizazz that breathes new life into familiar, even hackneyed images. Her latest exhibition, installed in a roomy mezzanine gallery at the Brooklyn Museum, applies this formula to paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso and Jan van Eyck, among others. This time the images are remade using thousands of spools of colored thread arranged in seemingly abstract patterns that suddenly pull into focus when viewed through a circular device resembling a crystal ball. There is a reproduction of Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein dressed in a suit and looking much like a man, made using 5,024 spools of thread, and a life-size re-creation of Leonardo's "Last Supper" made from 20,736 spools of thread. (Above, "After the Mona Lisa 1," 2005). These works boggle the mind and entrance; they might even make you say "wow." As much about art as about optics, they are hung upside down to account for the way the optical device, like the human eye, inverts imagery. From a few feet away, they look like fields of vague, pixilated color. But through the optical device, you see a perfect reproduction of the paintings. It's like magic. (Through May 6, 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, 718-638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org.) BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO