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Border Lines

"The Realm of the Not Yet" at Creative Artists Network (CAN) presents seven young artists telling stories about themselves. In an exhibit whose theme is borders, it appears that the biggest border of all is the self. But this exhibit of non-CAN- affiliated artists is not a hotbed of vacuous navel-gazing or braggadocio. Rather, the artists are like wallflowers, communicating shyly and slyly, interested in larger issues like cultural identity, emotional dislocation and political disenfranchisement. There's a drumbeat of disillusionment in this exhibit, which feels like a journey through childhood's echoes. With materials that range from Helen Cahng's cut paper to Amy S. Kauffman's little plastic mirrors, and from Roxana Perez-Mendez's toy airplane and curtain rod to Tom Oberg's Polaroid documentation of a failed DIY project, the works are humble, questioning and endearing.

Perez-Mendez and Kauffman, both standouts in the recent "Greater Philadelphia" exhibit, look great here, too, in a strong field. Guest curator Gerard Brown's 28-page choose your own exhibition book is a playful yet distracting touch, like a child tugging at your sleeve, demanding attention. In an exhibit already loaded with imaginative paths, best to let the eyes lead.

>> "The Realm of the Not Yet: An Exhibit Exploring the Role of Borders in Emerging Artists' Work," through Dec. 12. Creative Artists Network, the Barclay, 237 S. 18th St., suite 3A. 215.546.7775. www.creativeartists network.org

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Site Unseen

The best site-specific art uses large gestures to subvert a location's original intent and offer new shades of meaning. Site- interventionist art, on the other hand, like the projects of the eight artists in "A Given Circumstance," is best when it works in small gestures to make big points about broader issues rather than about a specific site. Using anti-heroic spaces (a sidewalk, a corner of a room) and inconspicuous materials (dust, ambient sound, a mildewed rag), these quirky projects are renegades of hit-or-miss that rely on Kodak moments to tell the tale.

Take Chemi Rosado Seijo's intervention, El Cerro (The Hillside). Since January the 29-year-old Seijo (whose work was included in the Whitney Biennial 2002) has been working with the impoverished and crime-ridden community of Naranjito, Puerto Rico, to paint the community's houses deep shades of green. His team of helpers includes his parents and one of his former teachers. The small gesture of color, which in this context seems a Band-Aid applied to a fatal chest wound, provides serendipity, loveliness and--as a bonus--civic pride in an overlooked locale. Seijo's photographs of the altered hillside houses provoke wonder both at the initial impulse to make the work and at the charming results of doing so.

Many of the photo-documentary or ephemeral works in "Circumstance" have charm. A few, like Seijo's, have longer-lasting reverberations. Become a site interventionist yourself by attending the gallery's holiday party this Saturday at 5 p.m., following a 4 p.m. slide lecture by participating artist Nina Katchadourian.

>> "A Given Circumstance (gestures in situ)," through Dec. 20. Slide lecture: Sat., Dec. 7, 4pm, Kuch Center (next to the gallery). Holiday party: 5-7pm, Arcadia University Art Gallery, 450 S. Easton Rd., Glenside. 215.572.2131. www.arcadia.edu