The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page E2

Page2E Sunday, May 19, 2013 State Edition Des Moines Sunday Register SHOWCASING CENTRAL IOWA'S ARTS SCENE Round and round New art exhibit focuses on a simple theme the circle in many wondrous variations By Michael Morain mmoraindmreg.com An upcoming art show doesn't reinvent the wheel not exactly but it does roll a few out for a fresh look. The artwork in "Vicious Circles" opens Thursday at the Steven Vail Fine Arts Project Room in Des Moines' East Village neighborhood and focuses on the ordinary circle, a shape kids recognize even before they know its name. So it's a simple theme, with endless variations. "This show is kind of different because there is no history, no pretext," curator Breianna Cochran said. "It's just about seeing.

We just appreciate the 'VICIOUS CIRCLES' The show opens with a reception from 5-7 p.m. Thursday and remains through September. Regular hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at the Steven Vail Fine Arts Project Room, on the second floor at 500 E.

Locust St. 515-309-2763, www.stev envailfinearts.com AND ACROSS TOWN Moberg Gallery opens a solo show by Travis Rice with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday. The last time he had the gallery to himself, in 2011, he filled it with shed-sized greenhouses decorated with iridescent panels, black lights, motion sensors, fog machines and "carpets" of red confetti. And lasers.

The show remains through July 6. Regular hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at 2921 Ingersoll Ave. 515-279-9191, www.moberggallery.com works for what they are." The concept started with a 2012 print by the Venezuelan-born artist Carlos Cruz Diez, in which a column of striped cir Clockwise from cles seems to buzz with hot and cold energy.

The work reminded Cochran and the gallery's namesake of other top: "Heat From the Core Raises Mountains and Opens Oceans" (2011), John F. Simon, "Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner" (2009), Deborah Kass; "Double Barrel Purple Micro Dot II" (2012), by Dzine. If 11 circular works, either in ONLINE: See more artwork from "Vicious Circles" at DesMoinesRegister.com. the collection or available through contacts. Cochran and Vail assembled dazzled visitors a few years hemi works from 13 artists in all, "We just started seeing common themes," Cochran said.

The oldest piece on display was made in 2000, although several pieces echo the boldly geometric Optical Art, or Op Art, of the 1960s. Vail said he sees trends re-emerge every 10 or 15 years. What goes around comes around. And around. And around again.

ago, printed a constellation of stippled ink dots with thousands of tiny push pins. So the circular idea spun off in surprising directions. Vail said he might dig out his polka-dot tie for the opening reception Thursday evening, where visitors might nibble on round macarons. from the United States and several other countries. The Chicago artist Carlos Rolon (better known as Dzine) embellished Day-Glo mandalas with diamond dust and soft, felt-like flocking.

The British artist Antony Gormley printed images of both spheres of the human brain, linking them with concentric circles like the rings of a tree. And the MacAr-thur Foundation "genius" Tara Donovan, whose Des Moines Art Center show of Styrofoam cups and drinking straws GEfTfYiQUifi HomeFinder Slje IHmites Hester COUNCIL BLUFFS HARLAN PERRY OES MOINES utinXVILLE OSKALOGaA ramrlcLD FORT MADlfin MADISON ft i klMA mJrMJt kl.