JENNIE AARON SPELLING MEMORIAL COMPILATION (SHORT STACK), INK ON PAPER, 8.5 X 8 X 6 INCHES, 2010

Mind you, I don't think Ottinger is clutching her pearls over the fate of the literary canon (or the book as object, or the coarsening of pedagogy, etc.) in the age of Google. If the smart, funny, and lovingly crafted objects she has created in "Due By" must be burdened with a takeaway message about the way we read now, I'd like to quote one of the great antiheros of television, Don Draper: "Change isn't good or bad. It just is."

MAGIC EYES

With Ed Moses' dazzling acrylics, what you see is what you get. That's not a diss by any means. Rather, don't expect something else to emerge if you give into the temptation to slowly cross and uncross your eyes while staring down one of the textile-like paintings in "Wic Wac," Moses' current show at Brian Gross Fine Art.

Moses — a L.A. veteran who had his first show at the city's legendary Ferus Gallery in 1958 — identifies as an abstract artist, even though paintings such as Anima Kracker can't help but cause pattern recognition: their fractal-like smears of off-set yellows and purples are in fact made up of the morphed stripes, spots, and other tell-tale markings of zebras, giraffes, and tigers. 

JENNIE OTTINGER: DUE BY

Through Jan. 8, 2011

Johansson Projects

2300 Telegraph Ave, Oakland

(510) 444-9140

www.johanssonprojects.com

ED MOSES: WIC WAC

Through Dec. 23

Brian Gross Fine Art

49 Geary, SF

(415) 788-1050

www.briangrossfineart.com