Suzanne Bocanegra’s I Write the Songs is extremely elaborate, highly varied and conceptually demanding—and that’s just what you get from looking at it

Seth Anderson knows that maps are about more than directions. He showcases them as objects of beauty and mediates them with his own subjectivity. In a series of nine pieces called Mapping, Anderson creates maps that from a distance look to have been made by computer. It’s where Anderson’s draftsman-like touch wavers that his human hand appears—and the works are much better for it

Due to Colette Campbell-Jones’ distance from the subject matter she covers, many degrees of separation populate her photography exhibition Stories from Underground.

John Randall Nelson further deconstructs the relationship between the signifier and the signified using a literal interpretation of signs—notably the ones found on street corners. In Alter-Native Signs: New Paintings and Sculptures, Nelson posits street signs in new contexts—bisecting them, incorporating them into paintings and conglomerating them into sculptures.

Video didn’t kill the radio star, nor did the photograph kill the painter.

 Big Paper is a little generous. Most of the works on paper aren’t that big (sorry, The Due Return [visual arts, May 11: “Full Sail”] skewed my sense of scale) or are made of several smaller sheets of paper. Often, it’s the subject matter in the six-person exhibition at 333 Montezuma Annex that’s most sizable, confiscating theoretical if not physical space.

It’s noonish on a Friday in late April, and a handful of Meow Wolfers are toiling in relative darkness to the bright day unwinding outside the Muñoz-Waxman Gallery. Inside the Center for Contemporary Arts’ cavernous exhibition space, a large digital clock blares a countdown in searing red numbers: There’s less than a month left till The Due Return sets sail, so to speak.

I’m tired of skinny women eating—the cultural obsession with it, at least. While svelte starlets and even revered (thin) role models (I’m looking at you, Liz Lemon) deride their diets and depreciate themselves, food prices are doubling for the world’s poorest 2 billion, edging them toward starvation.

Canyon Road needs no introduction, pomp or circumstance. (Try driving down it any warm Friday when a number of its galleries hold openings, and its renown and fanfare are evident.) But a little community never hurt.

Sure, skin is a metaphor. It represents, at opposite ends, oppression and privilege. But it’s also a metaphor that’s written all over your face. In HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor, eight artists explore skin to varying results.