Steppin' Out

Story

Works/San Jose exhibits dissect cultural issues

By Heather Zimmerman

The pieces featured in an exhibit at Works/San Jose reflect the variety and complexity of a province where cultures meet and mix, though not necessarily for the better: the marketplace.

"Feel the Difference: Cultural Branding Remix" is on view through Nov. 24 at Works/San Jose, 451 S. First St., San Jose.

In music, remixes add new sounds or put a different spin on an existing tune. Likewise, "Feel the Difference" takes a fresh look at cross-cultural issues, with an emphasis on how commercial interests have shaped the intersection of cultures.

This group show features diverse multimedia works by six artists: Jano Cortijo, Binh Danh, Ala Ebtekar, Amir H. Fallah, Juan Luna-Avin and Angelica Muro, who also curated the exhibit.

An installation also currently showing at Works/San Jose delves into the problems that ail Western society, from excess to violence. Artist Chris Elliman suggests a solution with his exhibit's title, "Subjugation vanquished through the acceptance of love." The show is on view through Nov. 24 in Works/San Jose's Paulette Peterson Installation Space.

The installation features projected images of Elliman's startling drawings of characters who represent social ills from Alcohol to War--and some choices on the list are especially provocative. A voiceover accompanies the images, enumerating the problems, and urging against conformity to a society that reinforces them.

Elliman's drawings of stark black outlines that have not been colored "inside the lines" are purposely evocative of a child's coloring book, and in fact, he has also created a grownups-only coloring book from the images. The original drawings showed recently at the Art Ark, an artists' community in downtown San Jose.

Admission is free. For more information, call 408.286.6800 or www.workssanjose.org.