Robert Storr needs no introduction as the curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, as a critic and, last but not least, as a painter of subtle geometric abstractions.

Mr. Motian meditates and lurches subtly and remains a subtle abstraction.

A subtle organic abstraction in tones of gray by Jerald Ieans, another "Freestyle" alumnus, is another.

In her book "Longitude," Dava Sobel enjoyed the space to explore subtle abstractions (in her case, the global importance of finding a way to fix longitude at sea), as well as access to a close-in first-person point of view (that of the 18th-century inventor and visionary John Harrison).

The more than 150 works range from subtle abstractions by Norman Lewis and Wifredo Lam to lively photographs of protest demonstrations and Harlem social life by James VanDerzee and Morgan and Marvin Smith.

It highlights the forceful stylization and subtle abstraction of the human figure, which while common in Asian and African art, is rarely equaled in Western sculpture between the medieval and modern periods.

It might have seemed less familiar if it hadn't ignored a large patch of emerging painters whose subtle abstractions are genuinely slow in the way they are experienced: Moira Dryer, David Dupuis, Nicholas Rule and Julian Lethbridge.

The exhibition also includes several terrific paintings, among them a pair of atmospheric abstracts by Bendel Hydes, at the Arts Exchange, and at the other site, Kiyoharu Goto's warm, subtle abstractions with luscious glazed surfaces.

The painter makes sensuous, optically subtle abstractions, in which linear patterns are embedded in fields of lush, glossy color (Johnson).