I often remember big museum roundups of new art for a single standout entry. In the case of the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the memory of a regally enigmatic sculpture titled “María-María” by the Puerto Rican artist Daniel Lind-Ramos won’t let go.

At a little over six feet tall, it was of half- abstract, assemblage-style female figure, her body draped in a sea-blue cloak, her head a blank-faced oval, her long, thin arms curving downward as if open for embrace. The materials she was composed from were unusual, certainly in a Whitney context. The head was a lacquered coconut; her oceanic cloak was a plastic FEMA tarp.....