Two years have passed since the tragic death of Alena, curator at the Nauk, a cutting-edge art museum on Cape Cod. At the Venice Biennale, Bernard Augustin, the Nauk’s wealthy, enigmatic founder --- to whom Alena had been closest confidante and muse --- offers the position to an aspiring young curator from the Midwest. It’s the job of her dreams, and she dives at the chance. The Nauk echoes with phantoms of the past --- a past obsessively preserved by the museum’s staff --- and the newcomer’s every move mires her more deeply in artistic, erotic, and emotional entanglements.