The double helix

Science and everyday life seem to converge more and more visibly these days. President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry publicly debate the ethics of stem cell research in their quests for the presidency. The Supreme Court deliberates the constitutionality of executing juvenile offenders, taking into account MRI evidence that physiological differences in the brains of young people limit their impulse control and ability to forecast consequences. And a feature film -- “What the Bleep Do We Know?” -- draws crowds to theaters for a tutorial on quantum physics.

Against such a background, the “BioBallistic” show at the L.A. Municipal Art Gallery feels especially relevant. Its 11 artists engage aspects of scientific inquiry and imagery in work that ranges from earnest but slight to visually spectacular. Eric Johnson’s exhilarating sculptures alone are worth the visit.

Sleek and smart, Johnson’s composite resin and wood sculptures curve and blossom, pulse and torque, mimicking the geometries underlying space, time and forms of life. His 16-foot-tall twisting column at the entrance to the show has slim wooden ribs encased in milky resin, the luminous surface perforated with yawning holes. It’s a majestic, dynamic presence. At once it pays homage to fundamentals of both science (in its evocation of a DNA strand) and art (in its allusion to the distilled shapes of Brancusi).

Johnson’s versatility is on impressive display in this selection of his work. Also his is a startling, profound little piece (just 4 inches high by 3 inches wide) called “The Truth.” A smooth resin oval flush to the wall, the work resembles a cross-section of a bone or a cell, with some areas translucent and others opaque white and turquoise, slim wooden dowels dotting the perimeter. In the center, a mint green canal extends into the wall, like the dark entrance to a cosmic ear. It’s tempting to whisper into it, or to press your own ear to it in hope that some nugget of wisdom might float your way.

Like Johnson, each of the artists in the show investigates the hidden mechanics of existence, the processes and patterns of cosmos, self and Earth. What they find and imagine has some serious beauty. A delightful sense of playfulness also prevails. After all, discovery is basic to both art and science. Practitioners of each must grant extravagant license to the imagination.

The show was organized by LeRad Nilles, an artist and freelance curator who explains in a statement that “BioBallistic” is a term used by geneticists to describe a new process using micro projectiles for high-speed delivery of certain molecules into cells and tissues to alter genes.

Notions of hybridity and fluidity course through the show like undercurrents, as does the awareness that our perceptions of reality are changing rapidly. How different such a show would look 100 or 200 years ago, before our concept of speed became turbocharged, before sacrosanct surfaces were penetrated by lasers and sound and magnetic resonance devices.

Michael McMillen’s installation conjures a vaguely earlier era in its lab setup combining buckets and tubing, steam, motors, beakers, old books and vegetables in bubbling liquid. “An Experiment in Inter-Species Aesthetic Transference [Kafka for Carrots, Balzac for Broccoli]” has its passing charms, but it doesn’t have the eloquence and concision of McMillen’s best work.

Lita Albuquerque’s contributions to the show also incorporate some of the classic tools of scientific research, to elegant effect. In “Stellar Mapping II,” she sets glass orbs, some filled with water, others with amber honey, onto an 8-foot-square bed of fine crushed glass, a terrestrial echo of the skies above.

More contemporary modes of image-making come into play in Marianne Magne’s underwhelming “Morphotropy: an inventory of seldom observed species.” The video projection and series of small digital prints are pseudo-scientific glimpses into what appears to be embryonic life or microorganisms, but are really altered photographs of the artist and others.

Victor Raphael too starts with photographs (in his case Polaroids taken from the TV and Internet) and overlays metal leaf to suggest solar flares, vapor trails and other wonders. His work too is thin and only briefly engaging.

Several artists adopting more poetic approaches to scientific processes and phenomena fare better.

Lynn Aldrich’s “Fling and Catch,” based on a Walt Whitman poem, is straightforward but tender in its evocation of a spider’s patient mapping of space. Individual strands of colored thread, taped to adjoining walls, span an interior corner, creating a fragile, elegant network. As a metaphor for the human effort to seek attachment and build connection, Aldrich’s work is nicely understated. Her “Constellation” is more of a hoot: seven altered lampshades mounted on the wall with their wider diameters facing out, like gaping satellite dishes.

Peter Shelton’s sculptures in bronze and fiberglass make hybridity manifest, in the artist’s characteristically clever, poignant style. His forms are organic, erotic, all bladders and necks and orifices, distended and diminutive, swollen or shrunken, always amusing. Two of Daniel Wheeler’s sculptures seem to owe a debt to Shelton’s work but lack its compelling pungency and oddity.

In a sweet, well-crafted piece, Sarah Perry extends a branch from the wall, rests a nest in one of its angles and deposits a miniature, cratered moon within. It’s a precious conjunction, fully capitalizing on the qualities shared by eggs and distant bodies in space -- their sense of latent potential, their seductive mystery.

Two new works by Tony Berlant take us back to one of the fundamental markers of identity: the fingerprint. His collages of printed tin render one kind of skin from another and amplify the pattern of tiny channels in the hand into giant, vibrant whorls. The metal is printed with images of the city, wood grain patterns and dazzling, sexy colors. Berlant “paints,” in effect, an allover abstraction based on a physiological particular. The effect is simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, and leads us to wonder just what a show of this sort would look like a century from now. In a hundred years, these dynamic interpretations of underlying reality could very well look quaint.

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‘BioBallistic’

Where: Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Noon to 5 p.m. Fridays through Sundays and until 9 p.m. the first Friday of the month.

Ends: Dec. 31

Price: $5 general, $3 seniors and students, free for children 11 and younger.

Contact: (323) 644-6269