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A friend of mine offered, as a title for Andrea Rosens summer group show, "I Like Good Art." What unites the three artists here is that each is among the brightest stars of their generation, and none are afraid to push their talents. Dana Schutz (b.1976), the youngest, is the lone painter, while Carol Bove (b.1971) and Sterling Ruby (b.1972) are multifaceted in their practice.

Here Bove contributes two 8-feet-high rectangular boxes — both called "Harlequin" (2010) — with two open sides, that play solidity off delicacy. From certain angles the boxes appear to be composed of freestanding metal mesh, yet from others it becomes apparent that the mesh covers thick panes of transparent Plexiglas. Deceptively simple — like the show itself — these post-Minimalist constructions provide a cool counterpoint to the decidedly more baroque pieces on view.

Seeing-through — if not transparency, per se — also informs Ruby’s two pieces. In "Pyramid Club" (2010), collaged strips of nebulae, stellar gas, and other cosmic bodies form a laddered pyramid visible behind spray-painted screen of clouds (or perhaps smoke). The word "Consolidator," which is the title of Ruby’s sculpture from 2008, has been spray-painted, like graffiti on an overpass, onto the side of an oblong, coffin-shaped wooden plinth. The striations of its dark wood-grain are visible beneath a thick and dripping layer of urethane. It’s an odd work, enigmatic in its intent and yet thoroughly compelling.

Each of Schutz’s three canvases — all from 2010 — casts a gruesome subject in a humorous light. In "Escape Artist," a woman in bed holds a knife in her mouth like a pirate. Three other knives have pinned her left arm to the mattress, as the hand grips a pillow. It seems to be an inscrutable allegory, but maybe the context provided by the other two canvases here can loosen the lock. Tightly framed in a bathroom mirror, a man (presumably) looks at his reflection as he cuts his eyelashes with scissors while talking on the phone in "Talk Talk." Another canvas depicts a finger stuck in a fan, resulting in an explosion of colorful dots, planes, and streaky brushstrokes. Both pictures suggest Schutz has strained Picasso through later art-historical styles like Abstract Expressionism and Pop, perhaps as a strategy for escaping the master’s influence. For Schutz, with her bravura paint handling and questing manner, is particularly adept at painting herself into artistic straightjackets and then trying to wriggle free.