The La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art...

The La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art has another outstanding exhibition, this one co-sponsored by the Centro Cultural de la Raza, in its downtown extension gallery, Parameters 8 (enter through Inside, 715 8th Ave.)

The exhibit’s puzzling facade is painted to resemble a froufrou interior looking out on a scene that alternates between Tijuana and San Diego, with “911” in red neon intermittently visible in the background.

This is only the introduction to a complex, suggestive installation in the space. The more time you spend with it, the more you get out of it.

“911 The House Gone Wrong,” is a metaphor for this community, an international and culturally mixed community at that, which is not tending to its very serious human problems.

The artists of the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo who created the installation include David Avalos, Sara-Jo Berman, Victor Ochoa, Robert Sanchezand Michael Schnorr.

As you enter the installation, you discover that not only the inside is outside. The outside is inside and upside down. You step onto a patch of blue sky and advance onto a shingled roof.

Overhead hangs a lawn mower in the middle of a green plastic lawn or turf covering the ceiling. From a door oriented to the environment above, painted flagstones in a path leading across the ceiling transmogrify into steaks, chops and roasts as they descend the wall opposite.

In one corner hangs a medicine cabinet whose mirrored surface has been altered to form a cross through which you see an assortment of pills and hypodermic syringes. Elsewhere, a grid of signs with the silhouettes of vicious dogs reads “WARNING--AVISO.”

In another corner you spy the target silhouette of a man through a window; his chest is decorated with a tattoo-like painting of a dagger through a heart and the text “My Country Right or Wrong.”

Over the door a text asks, “What if the military in San Diego was presented by the media as ‘Illegal Marines, spies, criminals, child abusers, husbands of prostitutes, disease carriers, drug abusers, a drain on county and city social services?’ ”

There is much, much more to the installation, including auditory components--a ringing telephone that no one answers, radio news broadcasts about immigration legislation and a tape recording of the song “A Town Without Pity.”

“911 The House Gone Wrong” is an outstanding work of art with a potent message for San Diego. Is anyone listening?

The installation will continue through May 29.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Emily Hicks will present a performance titled “Documented/Undocumented” at the site April 25 at 8 p.m., and Sara-Jo Berman will present “Mi Casa es Su Casa” on May 29 at 8 p.m.

Mario Lara has created a handsome temporary sculpture at Horton Plaza near the Lyceum Theater entrance pit.

Titled “Denominator 2,” it was constructed from parts of an installation that Lara created some months ago elsewhere in the plaza. Plaza officials, out of concern for public safety, had the piece dismantled.

In its new form, it is an elegant contrast to the visual hurly-burly of the plaza. Made of black tricot stretched over four rectilinear wood forms, it is an imposing but not threatening structure. Nearly 18 feet high at its peak, it is a pleasant room to enter to separate, rather than to isolate, yourself temporarily from the environment.

That it is a very successful work of art with as strong a presence as it has is all the more remarkable because it has been made of recycled components.

“Denominator 2” will be a “Molly Trolley” stopping place during Artwalk at the end of the month.

The installation will be up through May 1.

Java, the art scene’s coffeehouse (837 G St.), is exhibiting another outstanding selection of works from the collection of Doug Simay.

Included are an exquisite pencil drawing of pears by Martha Alf, a dry pigment still life by Norman Lundin, a powerful woodblock print (titled “Mother/Father”) by Roger Herman and other works. The exhibition continues through May 1.