Wilshire Center

Ten artists shows works that either incorporate photos or take photos as their subject. Traditionally, the photo is seen as recording a fixed moment in reality, these artists subvert that role.

Nick Taggart creates edgy sexual tension juxtaposing “neutral” images of everyday objects set alongside phallic minimal art. Walter Lab, inspired by a news photo of refugees leaving an invaded homeland, uses brooding luminescent purples to make a Millet-like view of heroic peasants only to remind us of the brutal reality recorded in the photo. Millie Wilson paints unchallenging duplicates of catchy news headlines and front-page photos set against neutral hard-edged geometries.

In Barbara Strasen’s “Retirement,” an enlarged photo of a tidy bedroom filled with nostalgic furniture and baby pictures is haunted by painted phantoms and agitated abstract marks. Julia Kidd casts an incriminating Baldesarrian eye at American culture in composite works that play images of harmless Disneyland rides against photos or paintings with heavy sexual and media overtones. Tony Greene’s installation includes now familiar photos of stuffed museum deer embedded in glossy, ornately painted surfaces. Others on view include Judie Bamber, Mark Norris, Uta Barth and Jim Shaw. (Fahey Klein, 148 N. La Brea Ave., to Oct. 14.)