Gregory Crewdson's photographs at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea are something like that, though less jiggly. The pictures, titled "Twilight," Feb. 19-Mar. 25, 2000, are darkly beautiful and mysterious. Crewdson, like the X-Files -- the television show his work more closely resembles -- explores all kinds of mysteries, though primarily the one involving the relationship between "close encounters of the third kind" and sexual repression.

On the surface, Crewdson's staged tableaux are designed to spark "wonder and anxiety" in the viewer. A man stands in his yard, transfixed by a ray of light from an unseen source above. A woman kneels in her living room, which is inexplicably filled with flowers. The photographs must have been a piece of work to make -- they're elaborately staged in some small town upstate, apparently using ordinary citizens as actors.

And, the gallery was absolutely packed for the opening, Feb. 19. The photos are $7,500 each in editions of 10.

Kristin Oppenheim is a sound artist, and her show at 303, Feb. 19-Mar. 18, 2000, features whispering. The front of the gallery holds a white labyrinth of panels covered with scrim, with a soundtrack of overlapping, mutating and repeating whispers called The Eyes I Remember. "I can shut the door, turn out the lights and be surrounded by precise reflections," says the voice, over and over. "Shut the fuck....outside and smile." It's paranoid and secretive, schizophrenic and institutional. And it's $25,000 in an edition of three.

In the back are a set of 40-inch tall photos of long elegant arms and hands, reaching -- they're beautiful -- plus seven tiaras incorporating large rabbit ears made from hand-blown glass. The photos are $4,000 each and the tiaras are $7,000 (edition of 10).

The fem-helmed sequel features a teen girl humping a plush tiger under a pink blanket, actors in Leo diCaprio and grampa masks, lots of legs in Keds (but no nudity), an infamous birth scene and a horrific abortion scene, a bulimic mother-daughter vomiting tutorial, and a dissociation finale with Heidi floating through the air into the sunset. Deitch sold one copy of the video for $15,000 to Greek collector Dakis Joannou, who also owns Heidi.

Heidi 2 didn't get a very good review from the lady at the New York Times, who thought the goofy doll-sculptures in the show couldn't be serious. "Bitch, she's got no sense of humor," said one of the artists. Jokingly, of course.

But the secret of avant-garde success remains elusive in these works, which are highly buffed bronze examples of the school of post-Pop David Smith. Rebecca Mead wrote in the New Yorker that Carter is quite happy making the things, and has sold works to superdeveloper Jerry Speyer and has commissions for 90 Park Avenue and the restaurant Daniel. Okay. The works are $75,000 each.

Kaws at Magidson Fine Art up on East 78th Street, with his trademark skull and crossbones sperm creatures painted on ads from bus shelters and phone kiosks, from $1,600 to $6,500. Can't beat a supermodel in underwear, with or without graffiti additions! Also available, 16 x 16 in. paintings of the skull for $650....Michelle Handelman at Cristinerose, with "Cannibal Flower" pix of orifices made of dyed rooster feathers, $2,000-$4,500, and a wacky video of the artist fringing the field of view with the plumes, $800....

New black-and-white photos at Lombard-Fried by Maciej Toporowicz that show tunnels, escalators and various other alluring vaginal substitutes. A picture of an escalator (in an edition of five) is $1,600. "He's trying to reach heaven via escalator," said Leah Fried....Klan-conscious videotapes and wall sculptures by Rico Gatson in his show "Fire" at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. A Yale grad who teaches at Brandeis, Gatson makes shelves accessorized by drag-racer flames and holding multicolored candles shaped like little hooded men, $4,800-$7,500.

The announcement card for the new set of shows at the Queens Museum -- where Valerie Smith is new director of exhibitions -- features a Renoir nude on one side and on the other that famous photograph of the woman in the electric chair obtained in 1928 by a reporter with a hidden camera strapped to his ankle. That last is for a show of crime photos from the Daily News archive, on view through Apr. 30, 2000.

Weekend gossip: Mary Boone signs David Salle, formerly of Larry Gagosian, and Boone before that. Larry has trouble selling paintings that go for less that a mil, says earnest staffer. Boone's new Chelsea branch, architected by Richard Gluckman, opens in September right across the street from Gagosian on 26th Street. She's sharing it with Charles Cowles. Also moving to street level -- Andrew Kreps, Sara Meltzer and Thomas Erban, all together at 516-20 W. 20th Street. Gallery exodus from SoHo continues, with Edition Schellman, Sean Kelly, David Zwirner, Sperone Westwater all seeking space elsewhere. And Glenn Ligon has joined D'Amelio Terras, with a first show scheduled there for next fall.

Meanwhile, up in the good part of town, Inka Essenhigh got a $100,000 signing bonus from Mary Boone, according to gossips who say they know, and Alex Katz departs Marlborough for PaceWildenstein. And those Will Cotton paintings at Boone -- so sweet they give you type II diabetes for just looking -- sold out at $20,000-$40,000 but could have been yours (or ones like them) for $4,000-$11,000 at Dan Silverstein's 18 months ago.

In the mags, look for Artforum contributing editor Jan Avgikos to pen a housebreaker on Leroy Neiman, much like Deborah Solomon and Robert Rosenblum did for Norman Rockwell....And Sunday New York Post readers were delighted to see hip young painter Damien Loeb posing for "Man at his Best," a regular feature in which three women judge the looks of a man on the street. Loeb got good grades overall -- what straight wouldn't, in Manhattan? -- though one woman deemed the new realist to be clueless about contemporary fashion....

Just in from Europe, we have art dealer Achim Kubinski -- who closed his New York gallery in 1994 and went and wrote music for Tosca -- opening in Berlin's Charlottenberg district with the first new works for gallery sales in 10 years by Joseph Kosuth.... Former Artnet.com art expert Andrea Breitengraser opened a space on Sophienstrasse in Berlin, specializing in contemporary scultpure...Anne de Villepoix opens new space across from Beaubourg in Paris....Brownstone Corread & Cie, which closed its Paris gallery after FIAC, reopens soon as a new nonprofit, the Gilbert Brownstone Foundation, with about five shows a year; the first to be announced soon.