Opening: Samuel Levi Jones at Galerie Lelong

Rather than allude to history, like so many artists, Samuel Levi Jones erases it. In his paintings, Jones often exhibits damaged books, showing how, over time, their ideas get lost. For this show, his first with Galerie Lelong, Jones will focus on law books, as a way of talking about how, for many black Americans, their words have become virtually meaningless—courts and police officers have turned against them. On view here will be Burning all illusion (2016), a painting in which coverless encyclopedias are arranged in a grid.

Galerie Lelong, 528 West 26th Street, 6–8 p.m.