If certain photographs are the basis for collective memory, can effacing these images free us from the grasp of history? Li Songsong’s exhibition “Works: 2001–2004” charted his recent evolution as he circles around this central question. Born in 1973, Li is part of a generation of artists who did not experience Mao’s China firsthand but whose work addresses the afterimages of Communist spectacle. Based on archival photographs, Li’s paintings translate well-known moments—Communist Party celebrations, military and diplomatic photo ops—into elegant experiments in disavowal.

Though deploying emblems