The sculptor Manuel Neri saw the human form as comparable to a canvas: “I love the body language that people have, the way they move, the way they position themselves. That says so much of the person for me.” Born in 1930 to Mexican immigrant parents, Neri came of age among the Beat poets, and helped organize the first reading, in 1955, of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” In each of their unique forms, and through his handling of plaster, Neri’s life-size sculptures reveal the human condition and a range of complex emotions. Neri died in 2021, at 91, and for his first posthumous exhibition, his daughter, the artist Ruby Neri, brings together plaster sculptures, bronzes, and works on paper that date from the 1950s to the 1980s. —Maggie Turner