Rena Bransten Gallery : Vik Muniz - Bulfinch's Recycling Yard, Vik Muniz Pictures of Junk.

Comment: Vik Muniz arranges junkyard scrap into rusty renditions of Old Master paintings of Greek and Roman gods by artists like Titian and Velasquez. Well, he doesn't actually arrange it himself; he's on a scaffold maybe 75 feet off the ground directing assistants to arrange it for him-- major junk-- everything from nuts and bolts to old washing machines, computer monitors, fifty-five gallon drums, truck tires, machinery, and even a piano. (An entertaining time-lapse video of one composition's arrangement process plays on endless loop in the back left room.)

When the debris designating is done, Muniz photographs his junksterpieces, super sizes 'em up in editions of ten prints each (priced $28K), and that's the show. The premise works, using the inevitable impermanence of material culture to comment on the cyclic nature of great civilizations. Between you and me, I think this category of debris is too unwieldy to arrange accurately; the results are uneven, some images requiring more effort to resolve than I care to expend on expensive art. Engaging yes; consummate no. But you gotta hand it to Muniz for tackling AND completing these dauntingly difficult deadweight donkeywork dealie-bob consolidations.

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Larry Evans Gallery : Charles Brown - New Work.

Comment: Trompe l'oeil paintings of mineral spheres (and one of ivory spheres) floating against black backgrounds, looking kinda like planets. Most compositions are variously lit random groupings with overlay; several show single spheres, one shows a row of spheres. Effective illusion; mildly mystical in essence.

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Lisa Dent Gallery : Thomas Chang - Selected Works.

Comment: Working as a docent at the former Angel Island Immigration Station (the West Coast version of Ellis Island), Thomas Chang noticed historical underpinnings and evolving continuities in the ways we perceive immigrants and ethnicity. He presents his findings in a series of Immigration Station photographs, some accessorized, some with posed mannequins in traditional Chinese garb, all effectively portending hard life in a new land.

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Ratio 3 Gallery : Lutz Bacher - Organic.

Comment: The press release is in the form of a "No Subject" email from Lutz Bacher to Ratio 3 CEO Chris Perez, dated March 3, 2006, reading "yes let's do it! -- what are we getting into? -- maybe timothy leary followed by 10 minutes of nothing!" So it's a video, I get there during the "nothing" part which, true to the email, lasts about 10 minutes. Then the "something" part starts, and it's kind of like nothing part, except slightly more.

Then I ask Lutz Bacher if she's the artist and she tells me she is. Or maybe first I ask this dude if he's the artist and he says "no," points to Bacher, and tells me she's the artist. Whatever. Anyway, I introduce myself to Bacher, profess unmitigated cluelessness and petition for guidance. She tells me Timothy Leary has nothing to do with the video. I tell her I used to occasionaly see Leary at art events (usually flanked by babes, but I didn't tell her that part because it's irrelevant). Now knowing what the video isn't about, but still wanting on what it is about, I ask the obvious. "Well, what's the video about?" She says it's a compilation of nothings, kind of a suma of nothings. "I suppose that's something," I reply. She agrees.

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Arc Cafe : Mistakes Is What Makes It - A Resurrection of Failed or Broken Photography.

Artists: Jamie Atherton, Joshua Churchill, Brook Dillon, Indra Dunis, Eve Ekman, Massan Fluker, Mariah Gardner, Lars Knudson, Amanda Lopez, Archie McKay, Donal Mosher, Dave Potes, Durward Rackleff, Heather Russ, Sophia Wang.

Comment: It starts out as a mistake, but then you look at it again and maybe it's really a lucky accident, a fortuitous twist of fate, an oblique opportunity to assimilate miscue into mastery. Good show.

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Maire Rua Hair Salon, 798 Haight St., San Francisco,?CA?94117; (415) 626-6674: Ron Travelletti.

Comment: Drawing, collage, and assemblage; clean, kicky, upbeat, and real reasonable-- most $150 - $200.

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