Fredrik Værslev’s exhibition seems to suggest that paintings are trivial; that they are—to turn a phrase—”for the birds.” Indeed, the five untitled paintings that make up the bulk of the show are rather innocuously referred to in the press release as “bird paintings,” an allusion to the manner in which they were made. Although they obliquely refer to the art-historical canon and such painterly concerns as surface, color and composition, the wooden, pallet-like paintings that occupy the gallery’s main showroom aren’t painted and bear few traces of the artist’s hand. Instead, their lacquered surfaces have been inscribed by the force of non-human actors: subtle depressions made by bird beaks and stains from ripe hawthorn berries. Initially produced for another series, the pine and larch structures were set outside Værslev’s studio before he left Norway on a trip. When the artist returned, he discovered that the planks had been used by birds, eating the hawthorn berries that had fallen on them. Fortuitously, Værslev decided to exhibit the wood as he found it—or, at least, with minimal alterations (such as attaching the steel supports on which they are mounted). As benign as the narrative seems, the paintings themselves are much less approachable, demonstrating …