'Chairs and Windows'

Through Oct. 26, Space 743

BE PREPARED FOR a little surprise when you sit down on U.B. Morgan's handcrafted Victorian chairs. What from a distance looks like carved wood is actually steel plate and rebar, and what you thought was a plump cushion is really cast concrete. The illusion is incredibly convincing; the artist's attention to detail is so exquisite that the surface of each "cushion" actually retains the lacy pattern of the original that he used to create the mold. Morgan, a San Francisco-based sculptor, has created a churchlike setting, lining up a dozen of these unusual chairs and stools in rows facing a series of stained-glass artworks. Rather than showing the usual assortment of Biblical scenes, each glass displays a different X-ray image (called a radiograph) of a crucifix or a fish. Their grayish bodies hover like ghosts over the black background, with the bright white lines of their bones (or wire supports, in the case of the crucifixes) clearly visible. Morgan's clever use of concrete and glass demonstrates his concern with material issues – opaque versus transparent, surface texture versus internal structure – but it also points to more abstract questions of truth and knowledge. He seems especially interested in the popular metaphor of "seeing through" something, evading deception and obtaining true answers. Not only can outer appearances be deceiving, Morgan suggests, but the internal workings can also be misleading. Alternative modes of seeing, such as radiographs, provide a different view of symbols, like the fish and the crucifix, but they can't adequately explain the power of those symbols or give us much insight into the ultimate truth or falsity of what they represent. Wed.-Sat., noon-5 p.m., 743 Harrison, S.F. (415) 777-9080. (Lindsey Westbrook)