Open House

Group shows are always a mixed bag—too many artists with disparate styles competing for space on the gallery wall. For that reason, I actually rather like the confusion and lack of cohesion at “Open House.” Where’s the all-powerful theory? Where’s the curator’s windy manifesto? Where’s the cult of the One Great Artist who’ll revolutionize the field? Nowhere in evidence. Instead we get diverse works by over two-dozen artists associated with the gallery, including Arthur S. Aubry, Jenny Heishman, and Karen Ganz. There’s much to like, or not, in this enjoyably cluttered show—much of it priced to move. If I had the wall space, I’d spring for Amsterdam by Matthew Picton, which raises that city’s urban grid in multiple dimensions off a white enamel map surface. The streets and thoroughfares become colorful ribbons elevated above the blue canals and otherwise featureless burg. Street names, ordinals, and other identifying details have been stripped away. The city’s simplified into a three-dimensional lattice, useless for navigation, but lovely to look at. BRIAN MILLER

Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Starts: May 7. Continues through May 30, 2009