Are categories helpful? This rather unpromising question seemed to be the starting point for a nevertheless intriguing exhibition at London’s Thomas Dane gallery, "Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative," Mar. 13-Apr. 14, 2007. The show featured contemporary paintings installed in two large, glass vitrines, one containing exclusively "abstract" works and the other filled with "figurative" art. Both were set up to be labeled and peered at like a bunch of dusty fossils in a natural history museum.
