'WHAT IF ... Gregor Samsa was a modern Filipina-American Woman?," Jenifer K. Wofford asks in her artist statement. In "Motel Cucaracha," Wofford uses Franz Kafka's figure of the cockroach to explore the classic theme of alienation and revises it to address contemporary issues of immigration and globalization. She has converted A.O.V.'s storefront gallery into a motel room, complete with brown-striped wallpaper, a worn-down rug, a cigarette-filled ashtray, and an ice bucket. A TV plays a video showing three "cockroaches" trapped in separate motel rooms, melodramatically suffering their alienation to a sentimental soundtrack. In the back gallery, bulky brown roach costumes are on display along with suitcases, furniture, and other props. "Motel Cucaracha" is deeply indebted to the claustrophobic interiors of Kafka's novels. However, Wofford has also joined her image of the cockroach to white-faced commedia dell'arte clown Pierrot, who was celebrated at the turn of the 20th century as a figure for the melancholic artist. The installation seems to reference a motel situated beside an empty freeway in the American west. Unlike Gregor Samsa, Wofford's cockroaches aren't trapped in their familiar, bourgeois homes. They're migrants stuck in motels, displaced and perhaps homeless. The allusion to Roach Motel traps suggests a lure of sorts – perhaps the promise of decent pay – has landed these characters in a situation from which they can't escape. And the Spanish of the title suggests the roaches are victims of anti-immigrant sentiment along with economic disenfranchisement (whereas Kafka was the victim of anti-Semitism). But the figure of Pierrot also gives the installation a light, mildly comical air. And Wofford plays with the tropes of melancholy and alienation, with self-conscious irony and sincere interest. For the duration of the show, she'll be periodically performing in the storefront as one of the cockroaches, watching films, eating junk food with guests, and hosting an all-night drawing party, among other scheduled events. Thurs.-Sat., noon-5 p.m., 3328 22nd St., S.F. (415) 431-8341. (Clark Buckner)