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Key Figures is a perfect example of a gallery show where you need to read the info sheet on hand. Sometimes the titles are funny, sometimes they offer insight; the materials give meaning and intention.

Key Figures, a group show at Adams and Ollman through March 28, is essentially a room full of faces. Some look psychotic, some unassuming, and some are confusing. Speaking of confusing: The first thing you'll notice when you enter the gallery is a piece of cardboard to the left of the entrance. You'll think, "What the hell?" It's called "Untitled (Shield #4)," and it's by Chris Bradley. It looks like a piece of cardboard pulled in off the street, propped against the wall, with two circular eyeholes cut out. What it doesn't look like is a painted piece of steel and aluminum. But that's what it is—trompe l'oeil cardboard. Surrounded by framed work, it comes as a surprise.

There are a number of surprises in Key Figures. The show's like a lesson in contemporary figure drawing—the art ranges from abstraction to borderline caricature to conceptual. Arnold J. Kemp has one of the larger pieces in the show, a print of a piece of aluminum with three holes cut out. The top of the frame is painted red and fades to black; the piece is called "What Actually Happens (See Black Say Red)." The holes are an ominous reference to the hoods of the Ku Klux Klan: It's a haunting, poetic gesture about racial violence. A painting by Vaginal Davis, "Jeanne Lanvin, Madame Grès, Elsa Schiaparelli," lists some of its materials as "Britney Spears eye shadow, Wet n Wild nail polish, Afro Sheen, Aqua Net Extra Hold Hair Spray"—three heads are stacked on top of one another on a small piece of cardboard. An oil painting by Brian Kokoska made me laugh: It's titled "Buttercup (She Gives No Fucks)," and it looks like the head of a child—the face of a girl with a huge grin and giant eyes, painted all yellow and black.

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