ART REVIEW : ENDURING ‘ANIMALS’ IN FULLERTON

A show called “Animals” has roosted in the art gallery at Cal State Fullerton, bringing with it a whiff of the barnyard, the jungle and mythology.

Amid works by 20 artists, Mary Warner closes in on a herd of cattle that press their noses right up to the surface of a Photo-Realist painting. Melissa Miller and Ken Little show us the scary side of cats: she in a stirringly painted view of tigers amid a terrifying flood, he in a cougar-like feline improbably concocted of leather objects. Michael Speaker’s striking painted wood sculpture reinterprets the centaur as half-horse, half-businessman--wearing a gray pin-stripe suit and carrying a briefcase.

The show takes on one of art’s most enduring, endearing themes--and one that is fraught with possibilities for sentimentality. But most of the work avoids that hazard, concentrating instead on a human penchant for seeing animals not as themselves but as us, or “other.”

On the cozy side, Victoria Nodiff’s beautifully drawn pooch wears a quizzical expression, while Deborah Butterfield’s reclining horse transforms a pile of metal rubble into vulnerable flesh. Working in video, William Wegman deadpans his way through a game of dog baseball that parodies human behavior and the sort of inane phrases that pass for verbal exchanges. In this world of “Good dog,” “Have a nice day” and “It’s only a game,” dogs seem considerably more reasonable than the people who serve as Little League parents.

Against this strain of domesticity runs an undercurrent of ferocity and wildness. Dogs and their wolf and coyote cousins predominate, howling at the moon, lurking just off a deserted highway or gliding by quite soundlessly. The tone turns apocalyptic in Judith Linhares’ painting called “Spector,” depicting a horse with an outsized head who grazes in a hellish, bombed-out forest.

“Animals” is the sort of crowd-pleaser that seems too easy because the subject matter is loaded. In fact, this mini-survey of animals in contemporary art is just good enough to make us wish it were better, that someone would seriously probe the theme and illuminate its psychological and symbolic territory.

The exhibition continues through Sunday. Hours: Today-Fri., noon-4 p.m.; Sun., 2-5 p.m.