We wouldn’t expect a straight take on the presumed comfort of “home and hearth” from Marlene McCarty. Her monumental diptych, Hearth 2 (China Camp 2009, China Camp 1976) (2010) is no exception. The two drawings (80” x 117” and 80” x 115”) describe the scene of a crime, in stereo. Both show the same low-angle…

Kiki Smith has a way with wonder. In her careful yet playful depictions of the natural and the fantastic, she occupies pictorial space with a cast of characters whose relationship to reality is delightfully ambiguous. In keeping with this embrace of the almost possible—as opposed to what is simply familiar—narrative is often left open: momentary…

Lisa Yuskavage’s two Surviving Sandy monoprints with pastel additions treat young, nubile figures in relatively isolated landscapes. A No Man’s Land 2 is the more narratively obscure of the two. In it, a squatting young woman appears to be making a bonfire like the one already lit to the right of the piece. She wears…

By the mid-’90s, Richard Serra had become an art world superstar. He had started to become recognized as the world’s “greatest living sculptor,” a superlative so bold and ridiculous that perhaps Serra was the only artist that could be considered for it in the first place. He has never been a subtle artist; his opinions…