An art exhibition of the news, some of it obvious

RONI FELDMAN, “FRONT OF THE LINE”

Obama says, “The day that this president steps down, the entire world will breathe a sigh of relief,” and he sounds as natural as Bush sounded embarrassing a couple years ago when he talked about “putting food on your family.” You knew what he meant—but . . . . The same problem confronts the 2nd City Council Art Gallery’s “News: An Exploration of Topics That Are In the News Or Should Be”: we agree with what it says—the modern world is flawed; Bush is bad. The question is how you say it, when every pickup truck in traffic knows his last day in office is 1/20/09, and tells you so with a bumper sticker. By definition, Bush-bashing is synonymous with aiming low—a range this show periodically falls into. A shame, because often it’s quite compelling.

The best works here are the ones that let you do the thinking; when “News” takes that from you—as it often does with voluminous notes about each piece—it becomes unintentionally patronizing, which is never good.

Consider Alyssandra Nighswonger’s The Offering, a stark, bleakly rendered acrylic of a fat family perched on something of a pedestal of high ground—ensconced on a sofa, watching TV. Below them, a naked skeletal man offers up an apple, which they refuse. It’s easy: TV’s bad/fresh fruit is good, and the naked wretch knows what the overstuffed suburbanites never will. You don’t need notes on this piece, but you get them anyway:

“Sadly, there are some who haven’t had the appetite for fresh fruit these days,” the notes read in part.

Nor do you need the obvious—Henrique Bagullio’s Old News 01, for example—a photograph of CNN on a TV screen, with a scene of Baghdad under fire, while in the foreground, someone serves a latte. Okay, we get it: we’re a bunch of complacent tools. Cynthia Evans’ Political Painting fails similarly—despite excellent painting—in making Bush a bomb-throwing marionette. He can do that for himself.

• • •

The best works here are more subtle. Sixteen-year-old Caleb Baer’s Head Physician is a stark photo of a young Kenyan doctor whose shirt collar is too big for his neck—and whose examination room is made from unfinished concrete and Home Depot-quality shelving. Eyes wide, his face is a wordless plea for everything his office lacks. Excellent.

Also good—and very basic—is Art Weeks’ (N)ozone. It centers on a blank blur of brown—not unlike the fight in a Tom and Jerry cartoon—but you spy a series of protons and electrons in the corner, and a green legend not unlike a road sign bearing the title. It’s gorgeous—even as you realize that kid your son brought home from school could do this, with enough Kool-Aid in him.

The point is, you get to think about that; it’s not forced upon you by that damned commentary. Sans notes, even two works which could be preachy somehow aren’t. Melissa A. Kojima’s olive drab cartoon strip Military Commission Act—Coming to a Neighborhood Near You recalls Raymond Pettibon’s noir cynicism in its matter-of-fact overhead shot of the military police dragging a man from his home as his family wails from the windows and front door. And Roni Feldman’s Front of the Line is so tightly rendered in black-and-white acrylic that from a distance you’d swear it’s a vintage civil rights march photo. Until you see one of the marchers carries a sign reading “The last time we listened to a bush, we wandered the desert for 40 years.”

And you do the math: 32 years and change left.

NEWS: AN EXPLORATION OF TOPICS THAT ARE IN THE NEWS OR SHOULD BE 2ND CITY COUNCIL ART GALLERY | 435 ALAMITOS AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.901.0997 | 2NDCITYCOUNCIL.ORG | OPEN WED-SUN NOON-5PM| THROUGH MAY 31

Tags: 2nd city council gallery, george w. bush, Long Beach