Good taste—what “good” is it, anyway?—abounds in Anita David’s recent series of paintings. The seven monochrome works that comprised this installation function as emblems of esthetic seriousness, 48-by-48-inch squares of plush gray, made using an inventory of painterly effects. The names that emblazon their surfaces are also filled with associations of a particularly tasteful sort: “Gucci,” “Bloomingdale’s,” “Comme des Garçons,” and so on, an impressive roster of trendsetting stores whose nominative presence sabotages the dignity of these painted fields.

The humor of this conceptual exercise is