HOLLYWOOD

Insider trader scandals on Wall Street lately suggest a morality where anything is OK if everyone is doing it. If that is the case, then blatant swiping from older art is legitimized by the fact that every third artist is making a career as a history cannibal.

On the face of it, Penelope Krebs is rehashing a combination of John McLaughlin and Barnett Newman. Eight large abstract paintings divide canvases into four or five vertical compartments using black, white and gray with an occasional yellow thrown in for excitement.

A bit of contemplation reveals that these paintings lack the pick-pocket smirk of so-called Neo-Geo abstraction. Her pictures seem to belong to an ancient Oriental tradition where masters are openly emulated as an act of homage and a way of learning. Older art becomes a springboard for one’s own admittedly modest contribution. Krebs’ rigidly symmetrical works are preoccupied with authority and the absolute, but a softening of edges gives them an aura of tremulous sensitivity akin to awe and hope. Often they act as sliding panels, opening on ominous nothingness.

The paintings are still stiff and slightly tongue-tied, but they have both ideas and ideals. (Newspace Gallery, 5241 Melrose Ave., to May 30.)