Before being about anything, Michelle Segre’s Surviving Sandy sculptures are about matter, such as the feel of their materials—from papier-mâché to milk crates—coaxed by plaster, tape, and putty into position. Many of the materials Segre uses are most often colloquially used to bind, adhere, attach, contain. Consequently, the works seem to be all joints: sometimes…

After years of painting in his trademark style, for which he first gained recognition in the late ’60s, Chuck Close, who is now age 74, has begun to remove what seems to be most essential to his work: his grids, his algorithmic process of painting, and his own hand. His tapestries, two of which were…