Reconstructing a Family Portrait: Elizabeth Cerejido's exhibit is a poignant narrative of political exile, love, and loss. The setting is Cuba in 1970, a year of political turmoil. People leave by the thousands. One family splits apart, the mother and her young daughter traveling to Florida while the father stays behind. The understanding is that they will meet in a few weeks. But fate has it another way. The exhibit begins with 26 de junio, 1971, a color photo of an envelope written that year, its postage-stamp image clearly indicating the radical political context of the moment. Then viewers see two photographs of the father's letters -- one right after the separation and one just before the family reunion. A neat touch is that Cerejido gives his letters a voice, which we hear from the recording of a male voice-over projected into the gallery space. -- AT Through April 16. Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, 3550 N. Miami Ave. 305-573-2700.
Ubiquitous Images of a Decadent Society: Francesco LoCastro brings Chuck Jones farce, tiki-lounge culture, and Hieronymous Bosch visions to a retro-futurist world. In the not-so-distant future, planet Earth turns into a huge global village in which humans, androids, and mutants hesitantly cohabitate. We are a fanatical, self-centered, materialistic society. The focal point is The Vicious Circle of Society, a large acrylic panel akin to the fifteenth-century moralizing work of Martin Schongauer. "Ubiquitous Images" contains a large collection of work spanning three years. Drawings, studies, and gadgets commingle, illustrating LoCastro's promising growth. I perceive a Bosch strain in LoCastro's art as the eruption of fantasy articulates these monstrous, apocalyptic scenes; a disconcerting blend of illusion and reality. Yet unlike Bosch, LoCastro is neither a pessimist nor a self-righteous moralist. -- AT Through April 9. OBJEX artspace, 230 NW 36th St. 305-573-4400.
