All the Ark You’ve Come to Love,

Noah’s Ark wasn’t designed to be wedged between a cement staircase and an art gallery, but try to tell it that. The lumbering reproduction crafted out of gopher wood is just jammed up there, right outside the Schmidt Center Gallery (777 Glades Rd., Boca Raton) at Florida Atlantic University. But before ya’ chalk this phenomenon up to bad LSD, just realize this ain’t your momma’s art show.

However, avant-garde is the norm for the southXeast: Contemporary Southeastern Art exhibition, a freak-fest flecked with not just sculptures and paintings but also digital prints and video performances. Here, 14 paintbrush prodigies from six southeastern U.S. states pimp their postmodern curios for prestige and esteem. And if you think Mike Calway Fagan’s Ark is baffling, just wait until you’re confounded by Bonnie Seaman’s ceramic heart organ teapot. Also, don’t miss peeping at Jason Brigg’s clay, spray-painted collection of slithering mutated slugs and Phillip Estlund’s, um, tool shed floating inside a crate. (Hooray, abstract art.) Finally, the coup de grâce: Irene Moon’s video of an insect fashion show (think: flea circus meets Victoria’s Secret). Admission is free. SXE is on display through April 5 at Schmidt. Call 561-297-2661, or visit www.fau.edu/galleries.
Feb. 20-April 5, 2008