An artist imagines a kingdom, builds it from the ground up, and invites us to explore the sights, take in the view. There have been times when artists formed alliances with real princes and kings, and imaginary kingdoms came close to being realities—Bernini’s Rome is perhaps the most famous example. More often, however, the most that even a great artist can hope for is to present us with the pieces of that imaginary kingdom: paintings, sculptures, drawings that represent partial views, particular sights. Since the beginning of the Romantic Age, all the artist’s kingdoms have been shattered and fragmentary, and the fascination of the artist’s studio has been that it has seemed to be not only a workplace but also a place where lucky visitors could get a glimpse of the kingdom to come. Who doesn’t enjoy looking at photographs of artists’ studios? The details that a photographer picks out—arrangements of brushes and palettes and paints, the jumble of objects ranging from things of no particular value to things of enormous value—have some of the revelatory power of the little scenes on the stained-glass windows and stone capitals of the cathedrals; they enable us to grasp the nitty-gritty of artistic creation, the process of building a kingdom, brick by brick, stroke by stroke.

The solo show is a cleaned-up, public version of the scene in the studio. Going into a show, we hope to see a new kingdom under construction or nearing completion or—sometimes—complete. That the shows