New Media 
OF PATTERNED COLOR AND LIGHT(0)
September 12, 2011 —
The work of Leo Villareal is transformational. The artist alters harsh electronic lights into soft, spellbinding luminosities, computer code into organic forms, and pulses of electricity into exhilarating environments. The first major museum survey of his work from the past decade (an exhibition originating at the San Jose Museum of Art) is on view at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art through September 18.
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The Basketball Tapes: Sean Thomas Blott
Sean Thomas Blott’s basketball drawings reflect his struggle to refine his influences and combine them with his own vision. They don’t look unified; in this, he succeeds in conveying the difficulty of finding one’s own way.
The Other Sides of the World: Lydia Katharine Boehr
Lydia K. Boehr’s “Trip” deals with the blend of familiarity and unfamiliarity that comes from spending time abroad in a culture which shares our language but not our customs.
Hot/Cool Combo: Kwanza Humphrey
There’s a good deal of both warmth and “cool” in Kwanza Humphrey’s work, which makes it entirely fitting to the subject matter.
CRISP TAKE ON MODERNIST GRID
The exhibition run of “Not Here No There” at the Dolphin Gallery has been extended through April 22. Including the work of Matthew Kluber, Anne Lindberg, Colin C. Smith, James Woodfill, and Matt Wycoff, it succeeds in both re-visiting and re-booting the modernist grid, by showing it to us through technology, alternative media, and new-fashioned minimalism.
With and Against the Grain: Shannon White
Shannon White’s work is inspired by graffiti, but not of the confrontational/territorial sort. It’s definitely of the “I can’t help but create, and I hope you’ll stop and look” variety.
Artistic Evolution: Jean Van Harlingen
No matter the medium, Jean Van Harlingen’s eye for shape, color and texture (even in the two-dimensional works) comes through loud and clear in her show at VALA Gallery in Mission.
Spots, Spiders and Sweepings: Kati Toivanen
Decontextualized and digitally manipulated, with some elements fuzzed and some in hyper-sharp focus, Toivanen’s debris takes on an almost surreal life of its own.
SPELLING OUT A LANDSCAPE
Some qualities in Kim Jongku’s “Mobile Landscape” at the Spencer Museum of Art compare to applying tone to a drawing page with vine charcoal dust or to child’s play in a sandbox. What fascinates is that the relief of the calligraphy also forms the hills of the fabricated landscape seen in the projection — and beyond what appears to be a rendition of a vast landscape are the moving feet of present gallery goers standing in the Electronic Media Gallery — in the same projected image.
THE POWER OF ENDURANCE
Averaging in age at 79, Judith K. Brodsky, Peter Campus, Warrington Colescott, Larry Edwards, and Lee Friedlander have been working strongly for decades. A recent exhibition at the Salina Art Center demonstrates the strength of their work even now. The exhibition re-opens at the Bradbury Gallery in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in June.
DIARY OF A FUNNY MAN
The performance artist Bruce Nauman perpetuates the thought that “anything can be art” by showing us that not only can any concrete object be elevated to the status of art, but also that any action an artist makes, can, in fact, be art. But Sean Landers takes this idea to a new level with “1991-1994: Improbable History” at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
LISA IGLESIAS DISCUSSES LATEST EXHIBITION
“Ain’t no grave gonna hold me down,” Lisa Iglesias’s solo exhibition at the UCM Gallery of Art & Design at the University of Central Missouri is on display through April 10 and is an exploration of her “fascination with repetition, futility, and time.”
A Space Rockin’ Good Time: Barry Anderson
“Space Rock Spasm” offers a dose of fun for big kids, too, especially those with a jones for superhero comics and classic low-budget horror.
Menacing Protection: Joel Sager
But where there is protection, there’s also separation. And as any viewer of suspense cinema knows, there are few things holding quite so much promise of Bad Stuff About to Happen.
REVERSE SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING
Review Studios artist Barry Anderson’s video projection installation at Oakland, California’s Swarm Gallery asks viewers to also be listeners. Its images are samples abstracted to the point that together they create a surreal, yet oddly familiar, environment in the gallery’s Project Space. The work is complemented by that of Sonya Blesofsky and Casey Jex Smith, also on view at Swarm through March 14. Anderson’s solo exhibition at Review Studios opens March 12.