[Jonathan Laib]'s website indicates he's only recently adopted the kitsch aesthetic of his peers in this show; his roots are in minimal abstraction. Considering the bandwagon he jumped onto, it's no surprise that Laib's mini-show includes some of the most derivative works on the premises. Joshua Gleason's "Fresh Kill," for example, is a neo-Dada faux-fur rug stuck into the wall with an arrow.

Ria Brodell's pencil drawing "Man and Worm" is indescribably bad, yet "Catcher/Samurai" by Chris Sanderson is somehow worse. It's a clumsily inked comic of a baseball catcher and a samurai warrior doing battle. Anyone who buys [Brian Gershey]'s curatorial statement that the works in "Transmissions from Dreamland" "represent fictional spaces that potentially mirror our reality but have been transformed by each artist..." has a real taste for horse figs.

The subtitle of "Trickle Down '05" is "an infinite exhibition." However, fin de siécle postmodernism has become so glib that it may well have already rendered itself irrelevant. For his part, [C. Sean Horton] is terminating his short stint as Firehouse curator and is moving on to a gallery job in Manhattan. Unfortunately, the schedule he created is continuing, and destined to include more faux fur and another "emerging artist from Texas." We can only hope that his successor will be more in touch with a community that used to pride itself on being one of the best small art towns in America.

Art exhibits
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