Contributed by Mary Sargent / There is something endearingly ambitious about an exhibition that takes the human body not as subject matter but as unifying argument. “Figurative as Concept,” at A Space Gallery, was curated by Alina Khalitova, an artist who trained in art history in St. Petersburg, Russia, and currently divides her time between the United Kingdom and the United States. She assembled sixteen artists whose origins spanned, from east to west, China, India, Russia, Germany, Italy, and the United States. The wide geographic sweep was integral to the show. Every tradition represented has its own history of what and how the figure represents.