FOR 6-15

‘RARE BIRDS’ AT AT LUISE ROSS

AVV/GS SET 6-7 #702725

NEW YORK CITY — “Rare Birds” at Luise Ross Gallery presents work by 31 contemporary artists in which bird imagery or references are integral elements. On view through July 27, the exhibition is replete with a variety of media, styles and treatments.

Featured are “rare” birds in the sense that the birds play supporting roles — to a greater or lesser degree — in the artists’ overall creative intentions and are not intended as lifelike reproductions of species a la Audubon. Some are pure invention.

In Walter Anderson’s faithful watercolor rendering of “Baby Birds,” the viewer sees the importunate vulnerability of all fledglings — of any species.

Lending a touch of humor to the exhibition, Gladys Nilsson pays off her watercolor caricature of two self-important matrons with equally puffed-up pigeons. T.L. Solien’s divining dodo, complete with strap-on wings, satirically portends the Gotterdammerung of the Pequod’s voyage.

Several artists employ bird imagery that is enigmatic, even ominous, in its allegorical reference. Ferdinand Pleines’s “Memory Unravels the Truth” is almost Hitchcockian.

The gallery is at 511 West 25 Street. For information, www.luiserossgallery.com or 212-343-2161.