Santa Monica

Eleven California and New York artists of diverse backgrounds show variously passionate, ironic and literal-minded works reflecting the aftermath of June massacre in Beijing’s Tien An Men Square. (The 12th piece in “Art & Democracy: A Group Show,” by choreographer Yen Lu Wong, will be performed at the gallery Saturday at 4 and 6 p.m.)

The most acerbic view belongs to Zhang Hongtu, who moved to the United States from China several years ago. In “Chairman Mao,” he defaces or recasts a dozen formal images of the former leader. One gets a Stalin mustache; another acquires tiger stripes, which ironically and bitterly invoke the “paper tiger” epithet Mao applied to imperialists and reactionaries. James Higginson, an American working in Guelin during the upheaval, offers a poignant image of the defenselessness of the unarmed civilians in “Fragile State IX.”

Chu-Hsien Chang juxtaposes a huge cut-out metal tank with hanging burlap bags of brewed tea leaves in “T.ea N. T.ank,” slyly equating the long-simmering rage of the protesters with the potency of tea leaves steeped in water.

Nobuho Nagasawa’s “Behind the Great Wall” is a crumbling wall of old bricks and tufts of grass that continues beyond the gallery window into the earth outside. Accompanied by the taped sounds of heartbeats, marching and Tibetan chanting, the piece evokes memories of the massacre and serves as a reminder of the ubiquity of war and top-heavy political rule (the Great Wall of China was built by forced labor in the 3rd Century BC to keep out invaders).

Tom van Sant is represented by a technically amazing video shot from a satellite 22,000 miles from Earth (a global, albeit apolitical vision) and a couple of totemic sculptures of found wood and metal are straightforward examples of “people’s art,” with a knack for assembling eccentric, form.

Kam-Kwong Wong creates a rhythmic flow of cartoon-like figures in his ink scroll, “Great Wall Flesh and Blood,” which emphasizes the recurring images of fading victory, balled fists and death. Other work in the show is by Robert Aisawa, Alan Cheung, Miu Tim Lee, Kay Omata and Diana Shui-Ui Wong. (Merging One Gallery, 1547 6th St., to Jan. 13.)