A streaky, faceless Madonna holds her dead grown child, over and over, in pietà-patterned wallpaper. A drippy sculpture that at first appears to be entirely abstract is revealed as you walk around it to have multiple facades, each one the profile of a dilapidated naked man (and his erection) in a sequential state of slumping or rising. Dawn Cerny’s latest prints and sculptures are pleasingly primordial. They’re also erudite, based on writings, but more fundamentally, the bodies crumple, get up, and repeat. Who can’t relate? (Season, 1222 NE Ravenna Blvd, season.cz, by appointment, free, through Dec 29)

Jen Graves (The Stranger’s former arts critic) mostly writes about things you approach with your eyeballs. But she’s also a history nerd interested in anything that needs more talking about, from male...