Mr. Serra transformed minimalism into a form of theater—having absorbed its brute certainties, he created a sweeping, bullying art. The sculptures are significant—given their gargantuan scale, how could they not be?—but the artist couldn’t care less if anyone looks at them. Spectacle is Mr. Serra’s thing.

It’s Mr. Puryear’s thing, too, as evidenced by the installation of five giant sculptures in MoMA’s second-floor atrium—including Ad Astra (2007), a new work making its public debut. The sculptor invites us to come close and, in the case of Desire (1981), to walk under—confirming, then augmenting, our amazement in a distinctly human way. Here this least ostentatious of artists parts ways with Serra: The construction of Puryear’s sculptures retains the air of a backyard wood shop; they are unabashedly hands-on, intimate despite their scale.

Mr. Puryear’s experience with wood, his signature material, has a long history. His father was an amateur carpenter, and he made guitars while in college. As a member of the Peace Corps, he learned “old world joinery” from local woodworkers in Sierra Leone. While attending the Swedish Royal Academy, Mr. Puryear spent three weeks in the studio of furniture maker James Krenov.

Yet the artist demurs at claims that he’s a consummate craftsman. “The irony,” he has said, “is that my work is often thought to be flawlessly crafted, [but] it isn’t.” He’s no advocate of finish: The wood grain is rough, the paint and stain are sanded down, the staples are removed and left unfilled, dowels bluntly announce their function and what look to be traces of rust dot some of the sculptures. But there are different kinds of finishes. Mr. Puryear’s surfaces refuse slickness and are an avowal of the integrity of process—and not a little self-conscious.

Mr. Puryear’s penchant for handiwork helps account for his rejection of minimalism. “I got real close [to minimalism],” he explains in the exhibition’s catalog. “I looked at it, I tasted it and I spat it out.” Machine-tooled sculpture, often done without the artist’s direct involvement, distanced the artist. “My own feeling,” Mr. Puryear continues, “is that it’s just unlimited what can go into art.”

Those aren’t the words of a dogmatist. Any artist whose work points to influences as diverse as classical statuary, African totems, Mogul miniatures, Barbara Hepworth and the raucous sculpture of H.C. Westermann knows that one of the best things about art is that it can encompass practically anything.

MR. PURYEAR’S SCULPTURES are alternately brutish, clumsy, whimsical and elegant; at their best, they’re all at once. Oddball forms resemble baskets, Easter Island effigies and, in the case of Lever #3 (1989), the sensuous and almost musical unfurling of an elephant’s trunk.

He is fascinated by containment and the promise of release. The sculptures are forever attempting to expand or escape from their physical parameters. Bask (1976), a wedge of stained pine, swells and shifts like a muscle burdened by its own strength. The softly rounded dome of Self (1978) comes to fruition with measured determination. In the balletic Sharp and Flat (1987) and Timber’s Turn (1987), gesture is stilled to unnerving effect; their angular torsion is rendered bathetic and comical.

A stringent and somewhat unforgiving sense of humor is an integral component of Mr. Puryear’s art. You can see it in his muted anthropomorphism. Abrupt juxtapositions of line, mass and shape result in a spare variety of Mutt-and-Jeff slapstick.

Lover #1 is a stepped plane culminating in a ridiculous appendage—an elongated shoehorn, maybe, or a stiffened tongue. An untitled work from 2000, wherein a scrawny maple sapling arches upward from a tear-drop structure, is a hilariously understated priapic joke. Mr. Puryear’s deadpan demeanor helps prevent Old Mole (1985), with its pinched and inquisitive “nose,” from descending into cute punnery.

BUT JUST BARELY. Dry wit doesn’t entirely compensate for the increasingly literal character of Mr. Puryear’s art. An occluded strain of symbolism has long informed the work, but has, in recent years, become distressingly pronounced. He has begun to impose a dull gloss of it on his sculptural inventions. When he tops an abbreviated architectural structure with an extended hornlike spire or pays homage to African art by hefting an inverted approximation of a mask on top of a found wheelbarrow, his work isn’t much more than high-flown kitsch.

Mr. Puryear likens the titles of his sculptures to poetry: “I think they should open up the imagination rather than shut it down.” Would that the new pieces embodied the conceit: Their poetry explains rather than expands. “Meaning” becomes paramount. And all that impeccable craft? It’s along for the ride.

Still, Martin Puryear is a marvel of contemporary art. Viewers will relish these sculptures for their unassuming mastery and droll gravity.

Martin Puryearis at The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street, until Jan. 14.

Certainly, the novelty of the work makes an impression. The sculpture incorporates equal parts Constructivism and folk art, with less obvious references to Surrealism’s dreamlike confabulations. If Mark di Suvero, H.C. Westermann and Meret Oppenheim—or, at least, her furry teacup—could have had a love child, it would have been Kohn. This contradictory pedigree all but ensures that any underlying heroic impulse left over from High Modernist aspiration is undercut by a streak of absurdist humor and a stubborn individuality.

Carved and carpentered from wood, the pieces evince a hearty, roughhewn sense of craft. “Finish” was anathema to Kohn’s earthy aesthetic; the woodshop, not the showroom, determined the sculptural approach. So while due diligence is paid to the shaping and assembly of materials, an unkempt, conversational style prevails. Are you familiar with the archetypal image of the old bluesman on the porch of a shotgun shack, musing and strumming his guitar? Kohn’s work evokes a similar feel.

The sculptures are never truly abstract. Each of them retains forceful but by no means constraining allusions, whether they be to classical sculpture, furniture or the animal kingdom. Ventura VIII (1969), a beautifully fashioned object that is part puzzle and part devotional object, is Kohn at his most hermetic. He’s at his most engaging in Owl (1954), a droll effigy shaped from the trunk of a tree and propped up on three precisely set pegs. In it, Kohn simultaneously distills and magnifies everything that is enigmatic and ungainly about the bird. I wonder if there’s anything else as good to be found in the oeuvre. More importantly, will McKee take the hint?

An Intuitive View is at McKee Gallery, 745 Fifth Avenue, until Oct. 27.

Renoir Redeemed

In his first solo New York exhibition, Ken Kewley does the impossible: He redeems Renoir, the man who painted the world—and, most famously, the buxom young women residing in it—as if everything were spun from cotton candy. On the north wall of Lori Bookstein Fine Art, you’ll find six small collages by Mr. Kewley in which he elaborates on paintings by the French artist.

Through the cutting and pasting of paper, Mr. Kewley confers solidity and definition upon Renoir’s fleshy sfumato. Hard-edged geometric elements coalesce into recognizable images, intimating physical form without making it concrete. Remember the plaint that compared Cubism to “an explosion in a shingle factory”? Picture it on a miniaturist scale and you’ll have some idea of what Mr. Kewley is up to.

The manner of the collages is meticulously self-effacing, allowing shifts in value and color to overshadow materials and process. Indeed, color is his true gift. Sophisticated modulations of closely valued tones make for rich and spacious pictures. In Young Girl with Daisies (after Renoir) (2005), Mr. Kewley offsets and enlivens a virtually monochromatic image with a range of purples, greens and blues. It is, in its own quiet way, a bravura performance.

Notwithstanding the pithy, graphic character of his style (he’s clearly a fan of Stuart Davis and Patrick Henry Bruce), there’s a fulsome and organic sensuality brought to bear on the pictures. I would argue, in fact, that Mr. Kewley beats Renoir at his own game, largely because the pictures embrace rather than glance upon desire. That it is art and not flesh prompting Mr. Kewley’s yearnings only makes his achievement all the more witty and appealing.

Ken Kewley: Collages is at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, 37 West 57th Street, until Oct. 28.

Dirty Wallpaper

There’s a moral to be gleaned from the exhibition of paintings by Sue Williams at the 303 Gallery: It is that capitalism can engender love. I’m assuming that the folks at 303 encourage Ms. Williams and her artistic endeavors only because the resulting pictures sell like hotcakes. There can’t be another reason, can there? It’s not like the paintings are any good. Blanketing the surface are accumulations of morphing twats, dicks and assholes that serve no discernible purpose. As wallpaper, the work is silly; as transgression, it’s pro forma; as painting, it’s inert. Miró, in heaven, weeps at the bloodless character of Ms. Williams’ scatological cartoons.

Having made the journey from angry feminist to naughty calligrapher, the artist seems keen on nothing so much as reestablishing her bona fides as an art-scene “bad girl.” The paintings, in turn, follow on the heels of a zeitgeist that has long since passed them by. Egregious riffs on bodily orifices can only take you so far. In Ms. Williams’ case, they’re taking her nowhere at all.

Sue Williams is at the 303 Gallery, 525 West 22nd Street, until Oct. 29.

Certainly, the novelty of the work makes an impression. The sculpture incorporates equal parts Constructivism and folk art, with less obvious references to Surrealism’s dreamlike confabulations. If Mark di Suvero, H.C. Westermann and Meret Oppenheim—or, at least, her furry teacup—could have had a love child, it would have been Kohn. This contradictory pedigree all but ensures that any underlying heroic impulse left over from High Modernist aspiration is undercut by a streak of absurdist humor and a stubborn individuality.

Carved and carpentered from wood, the pieces evince a hearty, roughhewn sense of craft. “Finish” was anathema to Kohn’s earthy aesthetic; the woodshop, not the showroom, determined the sculptural approach. So while due diligence is paid to the shaping and assembly of materials, an unkempt, conversational style prevails. Are you familiar with the archetypal image of the old bluesman on the porch of a shotgun shack, musing and strumming his guitar? Kohn’s work evokes a similar feel.

The sculptures are never truly abstract. Each of them retains forceful but by no means constraining allusions, whether they be to classical sculpture, furniture or the animal kingdom. Ventura VIII (1969), a beautifully fashioned object that is part puzzle and part devotional object, is Kohn at his most hermetic. He’s at his most engaging in Owl (1954), a droll effigy shaped from the trunk of a tree and propped up on three precisely set pegs. In it, Kohn simultaneously distills and magnifies everything that is enigmatic and ungainly about the bird. I wonder if there’s anything else as good to be found in the oeuvre. More importantly, will McKee take the hint?

An Intuitive View is at McKee Gallery, 745 Fifth Avenue, until Oct. 27.

Renoir Redeemed

In his first solo New York exhibition, Ken Kewley does the impossible: He redeems Renoir, the man who painted the world—and, most famously, the buxom young women residing in it—as if everything were spun from cotton candy. On the north wall of Lori Bookstein Fine Art, you’ll find six small collages by Mr. Kewley in which he elaborates on paintings by the French artist.

Through the cutting and pasting of paper, Mr. Kewley confers solidity and definition upon Renoir’s fleshy sfumato. Hard-edged geometric elements coalesce into recognizable images, intimating physical form without making it concrete. Remember the plaint that compared Cubism to “an explosion in a shingle factory”? Picture it on a miniaturist scale and you’ll have some idea of what Mr. Kewley is up to.

The manner of the collages is meticulously self-effacing, allowing shifts in value and color to overshadow materials and process. Indeed, color is his true gift. Sophisticated modulations of closely valued tones make for rich and spacious pictures. In Young Girl with Daisies (after Renoir) (2005), Mr. Kewley offsets and enlivens a virtually monochromatic image with a range of purples, greens and blues. It is, in its own quiet way, a bravura performance.

Notwithstanding the pithy, graphic character of his style (he’s clearly a fan of Stuart Davis and Patrick Henry Bruce), there’s a fulsome and organic sensuality brought to bear on the pictures. I would argue, in fact, that Mr. Kewley beats Renoir at his own game, largely because the pictures embrace rather than glance upon desire. That it is art and not flesh prompting Mr. Kewley’s yearnings only makes his achievement all the more witty and appealing.

Ken Kewley: Collages is at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, 37 West 57th Street, until Oct. 28.

Dirty Wallpaper

There’s a moral to be gleaned from the exhibition of paintings by Sue Williams at the 303 Gallery: It is that capitalism can engender love. I’m assuming that the folks at 303 encourage Ms. Williams and her artistic endeavors only because the resulting pictures sell like hotcakes. There can’t be another reason, can there? It’s not like the paintings are any good. Blanketing the surface are accumulations of morphing twats, dicks and assholes that serve no discernible purpose. As wallpaper, the work is silly; as transgression, it’s pro forma; as painting, it’s inert. Miró, in heaven, weeps at the bloodless character of Ms. Williams’ scatological cartoons.

Having made the journey from angry feminist to naughty calligrapher, the artist seems keen on nothing so much as reestablishing her bona fides as an art-scene “bad girl.” The paintings, in turn, follow on the heels of a zeitgeist that has long since passed them by. Egregious riffs on bodily orifices can only take you so far. In Ms. Williams’ case, they’re taking her nowhere at all.

Sue Williams is at the 303 Gallery, 525 West 22nd Street, until Oct. 29.

His Best Sticks in the Craw

Deadeye (2002) is the title of the first thing we see upon entering the McKee Gallery, which is currently hosting an exhibition of four sculptures by Martin Puryear. Made of pine, Mr. Puryear's dimpled biomorph is immaculately crafted, thoroughly considered and streamlined in its eccentricity. It is, in short, everything we have come to expect from this artist, except for one thing: It's kind of boring. True, as far as boring goes, Mr. Puryear's amalgam of Modernist clarity, Shaker purity and emblematic concentration is rather amazing. One can't help but goggle at the sheer seamlessness of Deadeye . Yet seamlessness is, for an artist as gifted as this one, less a challenge than a given. There's no resistance to Deadeye ; it hasn't been realized so much as polished off.

That's only one sculpture, though. The three other pieces at McKee are less perfect and better off for it. What they share is a curious literalist flourish-an overlay, if not quite an imposition, of "meaning" on abstract structure. Whether it be the belligerent

ampersand of Vessel (1997-2002), the mute stoop leading to Confessional (1996-2000) or the surrealist grenade that is Nightmare (2001-2002), each work questions the inviolability of form. This is a troubling tactic, yet it's also a fascinating one. Mr. Puryear's sculptures stick in the memory to the extent that they stick in the craw. It's as if he's forsaken Brancusi as an artistic model only to take up with a contrarian like H.C. Westermann. This isn't necessarily an improvement, but it has done Mr. Puryear a world of good. It's done us a world of good, too-better to have an artist we can argue with than an unapproachable master. And the new stuff is approachable indeed. Martin Puryear: New Sculpture is at McKee Gallery, 745 Fifth Avenue, until June 21.

Heavy Baggage

Someday I'll learn to ignore press releases. Take the one that accompanies the exhibition of paintings by Shoshana Dentz currently at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery. In it we read that Ms. Dentz's pictures "combine the ineffable beauty of abstraction with personal and political narrative." And what does this "narrative" entail? "Humanitarian ideals," we're told, along with "values" and, most conspicuously, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By employing the Kuffieh, the scarf worn as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, as a pictorial marker, Ms. Dentz uses her paintings as a means of ideological discovery.

I would be the last to deny anyone their conflicted emotions about a seemingly intractable crisis. Nor do I want to suggest that one's political leanings should cloud one's response to Ms. Dentz's paintings. What I do want to suggest is that Ms. Dentz's political leanings cloud the making of her art. Clearly she considers "ineffable beauty" an inadequate objective. It's certainly not on view at Klagsbrun, largely because this artist has yet to

realize that her layered surfaces and fractured patterns can't sustain the

extra-aesthetic baggage they're claiming. As a consequence, the paintings waffle: They're too big when they're big, too small when they're small, and half-baked when they're in between. Since Ms. Dentz has the goods to become a terrific painter, perhaps it's best to consider these canvases a step toward greater things. Just keep your fingers crossed and hope that she doesn't get distracted along the way. Shoshana Dentz: Paintings is at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, Room 213, until May 25.

Herculean Tribe Beats His Chest

Sculptor Lee Tribe is an artist of immense talents, and like a lot of immensely talented artists, he likes to show off. There's a lot of huffing and puffing going on at his current exhibition at the Robert Steele Gallery. Not in terms of stylistic diversity-if anything, the stunted nature of this retrospective makes one curious to see a wider array of his art-but in terms of effort. An heir to the tradition of Constructivist sculpture, Mr. Tribe is aware of how lineage can bind as well as inspire. Setting out to prove that he's his own man, Mr. Tribe has met his goal. One only wishes that he didn't have to beat his chest in doing so.

Then again, given the ambitious character of Mr. Tribe's accomplishment, a little chest-beating isn't out of order. Unlike his Constructivist forebears, Mr. Tribe is a sculptor who concerns himself with mass. Utilizing cut-out parcels of steel, chains and what appear to be armaments, he gives body to monoliths that are hulking, contorted and not a little menacing. Their heroic muscularity can be rousing, but I prefer Mr. Tribe when he verges on the ridiculous. Prayer III (2002), for instance, locates a droll pathos in an over-the-top phallocentrism, just as Prayer IV (2002) transforms the male anatomy into a Dadaist cousin of Happy Hooligan. It would be crass to say that Mr. Tribe is at his best when making penis jokes. Yet one does wonder if his not-always-apparent sense of humor doesn't strengthen the work by undercutting its brawn. In the meantime, Mr. Tribe tussles with precedent-deeply, dramatically and to Herculean effect. Lee Tribe is at the Robert Steele Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, until May 18.