As part of the ongoing citywide Festival of Maps, artists interpret geography through metaphoric and physical map concepts. Dread Scott’s vivid acrylic painting “Imagine a World” scrawls “Without America” in black on a map with Africa and Asia centered in lieu of North America. Joyce Kozloff’s “The Moments and Hours and Days of Our Lives” contains bluish circles, sparkly star stickers, loose sketches and intersecting white lines that simulate map-like qualities. Her “Dark and Light Continents” split up the map of the world into flat surfaces as the colored and illuminated continents sprawl across the wall. Grayson Perry’s “Print for a Politician Etching” intrigues with its sepia-toned expansive landscapes and stereotyped areas such as the Romantics, Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists, Fitness Fanatics and Rockers reigning on top. Other notable works include Nelson Leirner’s “Right You are If You Think You Are” with a photo of the world map made out of gold-rimmed US flags covering every country, insinuating America’s world domination. Ed Ruscha focuses on specific streets in L.A. and San Francisco forming intersecting and parallel lines between the roads. As erudite as maps are, nothing compares to the truth embroiling beneath the surface. (Garin Pirnia)
Through January 5 at Carrie Secrist Gallery, 835 W. Washington.
