One origin myth of ceramics: that far back in prehistory, basket makers packed their containers with clay to form a lining, and one day dropped one of these vessels into a fire, finding, when the ashes cooled, that the clay had hardened and remained where the woven structure was destroyed. Ceramics, in this narrative, supersedes basketry: and yet the practice of weaving continues, even, as the makers move from gathering to hunting to farming. Was this a practical decision, or an aesthetic preference? Some early ceramics are decorated in indented crisscross patterns, as though aspiring to resemble the earlier form. The themes inherent in this story—about the relation between craft and art, between utility and decoration, and of the development of forms, their chronological succession—are probed via the six basketwork forms included in Dan Coopey’s “Dry.” Each one—all Untitled (all works 2017), with enigmatic, geographic subtitles: Indus, Gansu, Tuxá, etc.—is roughly cylindrical and narrows and expands along its length, as if gently squeezed, as clay is on a potter’s wheel. Made from unpainted rattan, they look somehow ritualistic, like urns, and vaguely echo the undulations of Indian stupas, but they belong to no identifiable formal tradition, as intact and sui generis …