DOWNTOWN

In an exhibition of Cibachrome photographs, titled “Environments/Anti-Environments,” Tim Close attempts to illuminate the expressive potential of raw materials found at construction sites. As in similar work by John Divola, Close leaves his artist’s thumbprint squarely in the center of these self-consciously composed tableaux, which he orchestrates on weekends at temporarily deserted locales.

Close’s basic idea is reasonably good but the results he presents are undercooked and not particularly imaginative. Building sites have a rough, natural beauty that needs no primping touches from the art world, and the rainbows of spray-painted color Close splashes onto dry wall, ladders and coils of wire have a cheapening effect.

There’s a shortage of air and space about these pictures, which seem to close in rather than open up. The dominant characteristic of most construction sites is a sprawling sense of scale; Close distills these scenes to the point that they read as cluttered, fussily assembled still lifes. (James Turcotte, 3517 W. Sixth St., to Feb 1.)