Nonalignment Pacts

Near-minimalist paintings by Ross Bleckner, Alan Cote, Max Gimblett, and Kevin Teare; half-sculptural constructions by Alexander Arcella

STRAIGHT LINES AND REGULAR FORMS dominate, yet get bent in various ways, in "10012: The Abstract Vanguard," a retrospective of four New-York-based artists at Pazo Fine Art's Kensington location. The numerical part of the show's title is the zip code for Soho, a neighborhood whose resident artists had mostly been priced out by the time these 14 paintings were made.

The earliest pieces, from 1972-73, are by Alan Cote, who positions thin bars in assorted colors on expanses of a contrasting single hue. His two square pictures are the show's most traditional examples of hard-edged color field painting. The latest were made by Ross Bleckner between 2001 and 2003, and are also square. They're oils whose cloud-like forms float on darker fields, and whose softly gradated pigment resembles the result of airbrushing. Where Cote's compositions suggest geometry textbooks translated into color, Bleckner's appear more organic, and perhaps microscopic.

Installation view of five Max Gimblett paintings (Courtesy Pazo Fine Art)

The largest contingent is by Max Gimblett, who works major variations within a standard format. Executed between 1988 and 1997, each of the six pictures is painted on a canvas shaped in the form of a quatrefoil: a symmetrical arrangement of four protruding arcs. The form suggests a streamlined flower or leaf, or a quartet of partly overlapping circles. But the quatrefoil also evokes a cross, as Gimblett accentuates by painting a "+" sign at the center of two of the pieces.

A New Zealand native, Gimblett adapts minimalism's methodical repetition into a basis for all sorts of improvisation. The one of his pictures that's larger than the others is covered in outlined floral shapes. Several others feature gold-leaf diamonds, and one is coated with a thick, uneven mix that includes gold and copper. Two of the crosses are uniformly rendered, although the green one sits above an unruly blood-red splatter; the third cross is more of an "X," scrawled or dribbled in black over that craggy copper.

Gimblett is a student of Buddhism who teaches workshops in East Asian sumi-ink painting. The latter interest is evident in his most recent entry, 1997's "100-Yes," most of which is covered by Japanese-style free calligraphy. Yet one side of the quatrefoil lis a flat expanse of bright red, gesturing back toward mid-1960s painting. Two historical styles meet, and harmonize, within a frame that Gimblett demonstrates can contain just about anything.

Kevin Teare, “Tiger’s Half of the Second” (Courtesy Pazo Fine Art)

Gimblett spent 1967-70 in Bloomington, Indiana, just a few years before that college town became the home of MX-80 Sound, a proto-art-punk band. That group featured two drummers, one of whom was Kevin Teare, who in 1976 left to focus on art. He moved to New York and, soon after, made the four 1977-79 pictures in this show.

Teare's vivid style combines op, pop, and industrial precedents. He paints parallel horizontal black bars on boards, sometimes interrupting their path with different arrangements of lines and colors that give the sense of boxes placed within the larger composition. The forms are symmetrical, but roughed up by ragged edges and raw textures. Held together with mortar, the wooden pieces look like stripe paintings but are actually relief sculptures as well.

Perhaps this wouldn't occur to a viewer who didn't know that Teare was a drummer, but his works are intensely rhythmic. Although the artworks appear mostly steady, the boxy interruptions play as accents to the steady cadence of the lines. As the contrapuntal insets provide pleasing visual surprises, the beat goes on.

From Alexander Arcella’s “Kinetic Art” (Brandon D. Johnson)

THE LINES ON TOP of Alexander Arcella's two-level artworks could hardly be more regular in shape and size: They're thin rods of clear acrylic or silver metal, machine-tooled with no visible variation. But the 3D segments are hung contingently above their painted and drawn backdrops, capable of being moved by any ripple of air. That's why the Venezuelan native, now based in D.C., calls his creations "Kinetic Art." The pieces on exhibit at the American Poetry Museum are modestly scaled yet dynamic.

The paint and colored-pencil backgrounds are often lines that alternatively mirror or contrast the hanging rods, which are sometimes aggressively cross-hatched. Also featured are blocks of solid or mottled color, and a few variations on the essential format. One piece layers metal mesh above black lines drawn in a herringbone pattern, and another is mounted atop a wooden board whose lower left corner is decayed, adding an organic ruggedness to the sleek geometry. A few constructions add a dangling plumb bob to the composition, as if the assemblages were made to be suspended in water rather than air.

The most systematic of the works is one that suggests a Gene Davis pinstripe picture overlaid with thin rods. Several, however, include rods that jut haphazardly, bringing a threat of chaos to the proceedings. Even when there's no breeze to animate these pieces, they hint at disorder. Arcella produces tiny Euclidean paradigms just for the mischievous bliss of disrupting them.

Through Nov. 23 at Pazo Fine Art, 4228 Howard Ave., Kensington. pazofineart.com. 571-315-5279.

Alexander Arcella: Kinetic Art

Through Nov. 3 at the American Poetry Museum, 716 Monroe St NE, Studio 25. americanpoetrymuseum.org.