Pan Gongkai is bigger than he seems at the Frye. He’s a legend in China, an ink painter who also creates installations including video (as at the Venice Biennale in 2011)—and he’s a state functionary, heading up Beijing’s biggest art school. (His father, also, was an ink painting legend.) We see Pan in tight focus, in just a handful of mounted ink paintings ranging from window-size to architectural and made just for the Frye. The blooms of ink are unsketched and must be made all at once in a frenzy of focus, which freezes on the paper. (Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, fryemuseum.org, 11 am–5 pm, free, through Jan 18)