“My name is Joseph Winston McCarthy. Born July 2nd, 1986. American. I’m here in Berlin on a business trip.” So, in relative coherence, begins the handout for Win McCarthy’s exhibition “RULER.” The text then develops, or disintegrates, into a vertical list of potential personal measurements, all unanswered: “Cholesterol,” “Quarterly earning,” “Credit score,” “Occupation,” “Weight,” etc. These, meanwhile, are mingled with unverifiable measures and overtones of nostalgia: “Personal merit,” “The king’s thumb,” “Fatigue,” and “Once again, it’s bedtime for baby.” As an attempt at an objective outline

“Understudies: I, Myself Will Exhibit Nothing,” curated by Egyptian-born, Berlin-based artist Iman Issa, mixes the shaped and the storied in a way that scrambles conventional readings of abstract and figurative forms. Among the works chosen are two eighteenth-century Noh masks, respectively captioned “Deigan, Nô mask of a ghost of a middle aged woman, Japan, Edo period, 18th century” and “Manbi, Nô mask of a young woman, Japan, Edo period, 18th century.” I struggle to see the age difference, but the contrast in expression is striking: The younger woman smiles welcomingly, as if the world were