In important ways the New York contemporary art world was a much bigger place three decades ago than it is today, not in size but in its thinking. The first institutional solo show of the artist Edgar Calel, titled “B’alab’äj (Jaguar Stone),” is a reminder of this. Obliquely, poetically, Calel refers to Mayan views of the earth as a dynamic, responsive, sacred being. (Sections of molded soil spell out the syllable “tik,” the sound he remembers his grandmother making to call wild birds for feeding.) The resulting SculptureCenter piece, beautiful to see, isn’t a “religious” work in any narrow sense.

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Persons: Edgar Calel, Calel, HOLLAND COTTER Locations: York, Guatemala