Artist John Powers Builds a Better Death Star

John Powers’s handmade aluminum-plated Styrofoam sculptures are so detailed and mathematically precise, you’ll think they crawled out of your PS3. Empire is a shattered, five-foot-diameter mirrored sphere, equal parts Tony Smith, Saturday Night Fever, and the Death Star. His show, also called “Empire,” is at Virgil de Voldere in Chelsea. —William Bostwick