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Southern Exposure: Social Construction.

Artists: c a l c (tOmi Scheiderbauer, Teresa Alonso Novo, Luks Brunner and Malex Spiegel) in close collaboration with Johannes Gees, John Knuth, Vitaly Komar (former Komar & Melamid Art Studio), Leah Modigliani, Philip Ross, Lee Walton.

Comment: The premise of Social Construction is that "artist, medium and society" are interdependent. To illustrate that premise, artists produce art that is "substantially or entirely created by other organisms" (the artists don't make it-- someone or something else does). The preordained conclusion appears to be that "human creation has its roots in an unconscious connection to our environment that expands beyond the boundaries of our history, our culture, and our senses of originality and self," whatever that means. Anyway, enough cognitive contortionism; let's talk art.

In a fit of marketing shrewdness, Leah Modigliani commissions artists in China to make paintings of the homes of Bay Area contemporary art collectors (painted quite well, I might add), paintings that those collectors may well wish to buy-- for $1500 each. Interestingly, Ms. Modigliani's aesthetic escapades inadvertently suggest the collecting potential of cheap art from China. Vitaly Komar, meanwhile, chooses beavers and termites to collaborate with, John Knuth engages flies, while Barbara Bartos works with bees, the end buyers in these cases being less clearly targeted than in Modigliani's.

The most bewildering and unwieldy piece in the show is a large large dead tree trunk resting on its side in the center of the gallery (actually a compositional trunk created from parts of over 20 separate deceased trunks). The whole shebang is accented with clock face set into the center of the root base. Explains artist Phil Ross, the inclusion of the clock refers to the ornamental excesses of Baroque and Rococco design.