Arts & Entertainment

Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions

NEW

Living in Your Imagination — For Spaces' 30th-anniversary show, curator William Busta selected artists who displayed work there in each of the last 10 years. The resulting exhibition features not the fantastical, as the title might suggest, but mundane, everyday experiences, filtered through artists' robust imaginations. Florida artist Billie Grace Lynn gives concrete form to the "elephant in the room" with three life-size, puffy pachyderms. Fashioned from a diaphanous nylon, the animals stretch from floor to ceiling, dominating the front of the gallery. Viewers must walk around them to get a closer look at Cleveland artist Amy Casey's acrylic paintings on paper, which present scenes familiar to Clevelanders — drab neighborhoods, dingy industrial plants, and bright orange construction cones. But Casey removes the ground from her cityscapes. The buildings hang from a system of ropes woven like a spiderweb or are propped up by the slats of fences normally used to demarcate land and property. But the everyday is most apparent in "North," by Virginia artist Kevin Everson. In this short, looped video, a bundled-up man stands near a scenic overlook in heavy winds, trying in vain to refold a road map. His unsuccessful attempts to recreate the original order of the creases mirror the disappointment of being caught in the cruddy weather — something we can all relate to. Through July 6 at Spaces, 2220 Superior Viaduct, Cleveland, 216-621-2314. — Theresa Bembnister

ONGOING

The Formal Absences of Precious Things — Tannaz Farsi's work has presence. It must be reacted to, not merely looked at. Farsi fills the room with oversize, clear vinyl pillows, over six feet tall and four feet wide. As viewers maneuver through the claustrophobic space, four plastic tubes run from the side of each pillow up to the ceiling, attached to a hidden, incessantly droning air compressor that keeps the pillows constantly puffed. Fluorescent lights placed behind the translucent pillows emit an eerie glow, adding to the otherworldly atmosphere. Farsi projects four videos on the gallery wall — nearly still images of outdoor scenes, shot from her apartment. Set off to the side, a pair of disembodied arms and hands, cast in clear resin, rests above what appears to be a control panel covered in dozens of knobs, suggesting that this surreal scene is under the command of some unseen force. The tubes running from pillows to compressor imply a lifeline or interconnectivity. Farsi's mastery of sensory engagement is impressive; the sights, sounds, and sense of space transform the gallery into a sterile area with an unsettling quality. Through May 31 at The Sculpture Center, 1834 E. 123rd St., Cleveland, 216-229-6527. — Bembnister

Sam Taylor-Wood — Make sure you see this exhibition soon. Not only is it profoundly affecting, but it could change at any moment. If there's one point British artist Sam Taylor-Wood makes in this bold, searingly honest photo-and-video show, it's that everything is always in flux. And that includes people, a message Taylor-Wood proclaims with large photo-portraits of crying Hollywood alpha males. Onscreen, all are men of steel, but here we see tender sides, and the contrasts are both surprising and touching. Doubly fascinating: No two sadnesses are alike. Laurence Fishburne stares stoically, ignoring the tears dripping down his face. Daniel Craig, meanwhile, seems disturbed, as if witnessing something painful, while Hayden Christensen, aka Darth Vader, appears bitterly remorseful. Taylor-Wood herself is the principal character in several more pieces. In five photos called "Bram Stoker's Chair," the artist is seen balancing impossibly atop a wooden chair, gracefully defying gravity. They're haunting, balletic images, with her shadows dancing on the wall behind her. The truth in each is the same: She's flying now, but pain is just ahead. But nothing conveys flux more neatly than Taylor-Wood's "Still Life." In this time-lapse video, a bowl of nectarines, the quintessential still-life subject, is seen gradually rotting and molding to the point of collapse. It's a dramatic transformation, actually, and all those endless, static paintings of fruit will never look the same again. Through May 11 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, 8501 Carnegie Ave., Cleveland, 216-421-8671. — Zachary Lewis