“POP Craft’’ largely succeeds. These artists are master technicians, and that helps to anchor their potentially helium-filled subject matter. Take Karen Shapiro’s “Good & Plenty,’’ a raku-fired ceramic, two-foot-long candy box on the wall, spilling out white and pink clay candies. There’s nothing semi-mechanized about Shapiro’s process, and the contrast of the handmade work with its mass-produced subject is satisfying. Likewise, Peter Morgan’s elegantly crafted “Tuna Can’’ is a giant ceramic tin topped with choppy water tossing a toy boat.
Joseph Cavalieri’s “The Missing Episodes’’ takes characters from “The Simpsons’’ and deposits them in stained glass mounted in light boxes. The tension between “Simpsons’’ creator Matt Groening’s irreverent style and the sacred references in the form of the stained glass is dark and achingly funny.
Several Barbie doll cheeks and pink lips amass into one sweet and disturbing cloud in Margaux Lange’s “Bubblegum POP Neckpiece.’’ “Manufactured,’’ Ken Derengowski’s installation of containers from McDonald’s fries folded origami-like into pear-shaped diamonds makes a witty conflation of trash and value.
Not everything here is as conceptually sharp. Justin Rothshank’s clay “Michael Jackson Small Platter’’ seems to be pandering, although his “Barney Fife Medium Platter’’ has a goofy allure. Even in its weaker moments, the show has the magnetic draw of the familiar.
On perception and futility
Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media has put together its first juried show, “Pulling Back the Curtain.’’ Jurors George Fifield, director of the Boston Cyberarts Festival, and Axiom director Heidi Kayser tapped 10 artists of the 30 who submitted work. The title articulates a loose theme about layers of memory, nostalgia, and how perception is fleeting.
