DOTTY ATTIE
In a revisitation of themes from a 2003 show, six-by-six-inch oil paintings, meticulously copied from press and personal photographs, are interspersed with scraps of a sentence whose meaning shifts subtly with each new context: “Sometimes a traveler in foreign lands/Where customs and mores are unfamiliar/Will find to his surprise/That in certain places/And in certain times/Resistance/And refusal/Mean consent.” The small paintings form tidy thematic sequences- about personal grooming and maintenance, tabloid culture, precaution and fear in times of war, child-rearing-that ask, with a fair degree of wit and a debater’s persistence, how far we are willing to go for beauty, security, and entertainment. The answers are not reassuring. Through April 14. (P.P.O.W., 555 W. 25th St. 212-647-1044.)