Ian Falconer’s first solo show—consisting of 20 acrylic-on-canvas paintings, all framed in black and dated 1988—didn’t impart much besides an energetic freedom with paint and a taste for palatable colors, such as pistachio green, burnt orange, mauve, purple, and flesh. Executed in a loose style, the paintings are permeated with reverence for the work of Matisse, Picasso, and David Hockney (Falconer’s teacher). Falconer shares Hockney’s interest in depicting the reclining male nude, but the younger artist’s figures exude no sexual tension. Instead, they project a limited boyish charm and a great

Until this year, Lee Kaplan’s work had taken the form of small, intimate collages of photomechanically reproduced images derived from corporate reports, fashion layouts, and advertisements. By appropriating and dislocating the allegorizing strategies of early Modernism—such as those of Kurt Schwitters or Hannah Höch—and rereading them through the reifying language of Madison Avenue, Kaplan was able to disclose their historicized passivity and restate an open evaluation of the image-context dialectic. In two recent exhibitions, however, Kaplan moved up in scale and ambition to tackle historicism

An ordinary human life is cluttered with many common objects that are taken for granted—light bulbs, steering wheels, chairs, string, radios, street signs, clothing, etc. Assemblage art grew out of and capitalized on the inclination to personalize these kinds of objects, to make them our own, and to imbue them with meaning. In this century, artists have taken the idea one step further, by constructing self-portraits, political commentaries, and other works out of found objects.

“Lost and Found” was a museum-sized exhibit of the work of 85 artists who have focused on creating pieces using found