Daddies are out. Directors are in.

Midway through Tamara Rosenblum’s Paraíso, 2021, a four-channel video installation that played on a loop in an upstairs gallery of the Vincent Price Art Museum, a silver-haired man in a scarecrow costume has pinned himself to a tree. The wind picks up the tufts of straw sticking out of his loose shirt and pointy hat, whipping them into his face. The humor addresses that nebulous space between the actor and the vessel of his archetype, begging the question, Do scarecrows get itchy? He pulls strands of straw out of his eyes as the artist’s voice comes in from

Clarissa Tossin’s exhibition here, “Disorientation Towards Collapse,” translated the story of our catastrophic environmental moment into an eccentric and contemplative language. The Brazilian-born, Los Angeles–based artist’s labors for this show included a ghostly grove crafted from silicone and wood, and weavings made of trashed cardboard boxes. Meditating on these works, one could feel the shrieky, fast-burning wreckage of the planet slow down until it transforms into a space of dark interior revelation. Research-rich projects by social-practice artists—such as Eve S. Mosher (who provides