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Jacob El Hanani’s studio is immaculate. The hardwood floors gleam and neat rows of books are stacked along shelves against walls near the entrance. During my visit, he takes out various binders, exhibition catalogs and drawings before returning each to its exact place in a filing cabinet or drawer below one of the two tables where he draws. “It’s always like this,” he says.
In the context of his work, El Hanani’s neatness coheres. From a distance, his pieces look abstract: a hazy gray square on canvas, a roiling atmospheric…