Work from Duron Jackson (left) and Deborah Grant.

In the back corner of the Carol Jazzar gallery, a large (72” X 72”) sculpture of a cross leans against two walls. It’s made of white birch wood and is inlaid with dominoes – it is the piece that immediately draws your eye in the exhibit “Present Tense Future Perfect,” curated by Teka Selman. Titled “Bones Crusade,” the remarkable work from New York-Based Duron Jackson also addresses underpinnings to this exhibit. It relates to a troubling (or tense) present and maybe a better future – dominoes are the ubiquitous game played by inmates in prison, in a country that incarcerates our population at higher rates than anywhere else, and incarcerates black men in particular at astoundingly high rates. Is the “crusade” here what we already have done to a segment of the population, or the fight to change this oppressive reality in the future? Next to it are two photographs from Wyatt Gallery (that’s a person, not a gallery) who pointed his camera at a series of tents in post-earthquake Haiti. One, showing an endless expanse of tents under an ominous sky, called “Hill of Tents,” is striking and powerful: so many people are somewhat sheltered in this image, but precariously so. Will their future be more secure than this?

Work from Sheree Hovsepien, Simone Leigh & Liz Magic Laser and Wyatt Gallery.

On another wall, two black-and-white images from Sheree Hovsepian are beautiful and in a sense unstable as well. They are photograms, “non-camera” prints made on photosensitive paper, so they are not representations of a real scene but abstract, manipulated, and each one, because of the technique, unique. There is also a video starring opera singer Alicia Hall Moran, which is set in a completely empty theater, from Simone Leigh & Liz Magic Laser titled “Breakdown;” and a great artist book in an edition of 50 called “NOTHING,” from Sadie Barnette. Selman, who has curated shows around the country and written about artists such as Kara Walker, has picked out subtle works in various forms, often with little color, to populate this exhibition that makes a statement without being loud or sensational. These are also artists you will want to keep on eye on: hopefully some of them will be back showing in Miami again as well.