John Ashbery once described a work of art as “a fiction on the threshold of being,” hinting that layers of metaphor and mystery could potentially spread out, like rippling water, from a suggestively charged artwork. Such is the case with the eight pieces in “Trace,” a spotty show at the Whitney Museum at Altria.

Because the work is located in two distinct spaces (the museum’s sculpture court and its gallery), “Trace” feels like two shows; the quality of the work also divides down this unintentional line, with the three best works placed out in the sculpture court.Unfortunately, even these suffer from being sadistically cramped into an awkward space.

The wacky 18th-century idea of an architectural folly gets a 21st-century face lift in Karlis Rekevics’s “Veracity,Validity, Fabrication, Facts?” (2006), a work comprised of three large cast-plaster parts. Instead of crumbling Corinthian columns, Mr. Rekevics places around the sculpture court remnants of overlooked but ever-present industrial architectural elements – like the buttressing I-beams of a highway underpass. Bare lightbulbs attached like barnacles to the undersides of these structures add a skewed range of dirty off-whites to the color palette. Mr. Rekevics’s sculptural triptych almost reads like words fallen out of a sentence, and he seems to be taking a cue from Matthew Barney’s myth-evoking petroleum installations.

Ivan Navarro’s “Die Again (Monument for Tony Smith)” (2006) throws Minimalism, sweat-hut meditation, and sleight of hand into a blender. The result is a Death Star-inspired black plywood cube you enter to find thumping trance music. Inside, two mini-sculptures composed of mirrors reflecting fluorescent light confound perception by creating deep spaces that seem to extend far be yond the cube’s confines. And while Mr. Navarro does not probe as deeply as, say, Dan Flavin into the formal possibilities of electrified color, he does wring some surprising bluish-greens out of these two interior sculptures.

In “Junglegym” (2006), Karyn Olivier uses poplar poles to re-create a large skeletal rendition of the steel jungle gyms that exist in urban playgrounds. This piece contains its own internal geometric logic, not unlike that found in a Joaquin Torres-Garcia painting. The presence of many wooden ladders constantly reiterates the jungle gym’s functional roots: This thing should be covered with boughs of screaming children. But “Junglegym” escapes the deadly fate of sentimentality because it doesn’t rely on nostalgic narrative; its strong compositional formality is too assertive.

But the idiosyncrasies inherent in a sculpture court distract the art and limit the viewer’s enjoyment. Surrounded by cafe tables, chairs, and even a piano, Mr. Rekevics’s piece feels like it is simply blocking the way to the espresso bar. If Mr.Navarro’s piece had been installed in the adjacent gallery, alone, filling the space with its eeriness, it would have pulsated with real mystery. And though Ms. Olivier’s piece feels more spatially integrated, it, too, suffers because it has to compete with the other two works instead of forming a mutually beneficial dialogue.

“Trace” would have been more focused had it only consisted of these three pieces.Airing out the intervals between the works would have allowed room for metaphor and suggestion to really swim around.

The artists themselves, however, have to shoulder the blame for not anticipating how the space would affect their work.Though site-specific art can be a hard-bargain, successful examples – like Elie Nadleman’s large figures for the New York State Theater or Tom Otterness’s goofy characters in the 14th Street subway station – prove this harmony between art and public space is possible.

The objects in “Trace” do not ask or answer questions: They remain fiercely neutral.Some of these pieces even seem engineered to intimidate – perhaps not wanting to be discarded by a quick read. But if you spend time with the better pieces, they will shed their facade of cool, becoming nascent fragments of an unseen, overarching narrative.

Until November 12 (120 Park Avenue, between 41st and 42nd Streets, 917-663-2453).