An unexpected aftereffect of wandering through “Thrum”—Scottish sculptor Claire Barclay’s substantial exhibition this past spring—was a lingering low-level sense of dread. Barclay’s art is mostly abstract and elliptical: mysterious but not menacing. Her post-Minimalist forms, realized as sprawling installations or self-contained tableaux, are always stern and sensual, playing intelligently on tensions between austere sculptural frameworks and decorative or expressive features. Barclay pieces together hardy, high-quality industrial materials—steel frames, timber beams, machined brass fittings—