The determining effects of photography on contemporary existence take on a wonderful physical palpability in the recent work of Mary Lou Zelazny. The figures in her painted and collaged images are composed of photographic fragments culled from books and magazines; indeed, her characters are both physically and poetically constituted by the images they consume. Zelazny is a collagist/provocateur, judiciously wielding her scissors to construct figures that are seamlessly incorporated into straightforward, descriptively painted settings, creating scenarios that manage to reanimate traditional

Monochromatic and hermetic, Gaylen Gerber’s barely discernible images renounce the pleasures of iconography. In this exhibition, 25 identical square paintings formed a 79-foot 2-inch horizontal band, which functioned as a single wall, prohibiting entry into most of the gallery and determining the position from which to examine the lineup. The effect of the installation was not unlike that of a Minimalist sculpture, theatrical in its object-hood but lacking any pictorial presence. Viewers familiar with this artist’s work have perhaps detected faint images in his deadpan canvases, but the subject