Michael Hakimi gave his recent show the title “Lichtfäden, die ins Bild hinüberwachsen” (Light-Threads That Wander Over into the Picture)—a phrase, as he notes in an accompanying essay, borrowed from an early description of the photographic process, whose author is unknown. The indeterminacy seems fortuitous, allowing the phrase to float freely as a perhaps linguistic image, its myriad implications—both poetic and material—resonating with Hakimi’s work.

At first glance, you would have thought the works on display were paintings on smallish to medium-size panels, presented in a