Tony Tye, Post-Gazette "Daydream Nation (Through the Perilous Night)" exhibition at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, includes an artist consortium's large toyland called "Li'l Puppy Peace." Click photo for larger image.

Visual overload is one of the by-products of an age that's figured out how to reproduce almost anything effortlessly. "Daydream Nation (Through the Perilous Night)," an infectiously ebullient exhibition at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, demonstrates that with the right presentation that could be a good thing.

Bold, saucy and smart works by a bevy of artists in their 20s to mid-30s thoughtfully installed on brightly painted walls turn this stereotypically white box space into a joyful flowing experience of color and design.

The show comprises eight installations, but even in the eccentric world of installation art they're an atypical bunch.

The first encountered lines the stairway to the gallery. Pittsburgh artist Ladyboy, along with friends Horsie, Juicy and a couple of unnamed others, plied their magic with silkscreen, wheat pasting, stencil and sticker art to produce a site-specific installation with graphic sizzle.

It sets the tone for the show and marks a transition zone between the street -- where the ubiquity of imagery is taken for granted -- and the gallery, where the artists rekindle the visitor's perceptual acuity.

Upon entering the gallery, the visitor is immediately enticed by the vast numbers of artworks, the celebratory flaunting of color, the variety of size and form and, mostly, the way objects, from wall hung posters to sculpture, seep unpredictably around corners, down walls, over windows.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Takatomo Tomita's quirky painted plastic figures. Click photo for larger image.

"There's an element of grotesque, [of] carnivalesque, in the show," says Alex Smith, festival assistant curator, who co-curated the exhibition with Sarah Hromack. "It lures you with its candy-coatedness ... seduces ... feels very safe."

Playfulness is evident, the humor at times straightforwardly bawdy, at others, subtly crouching beneath an ironic twist. Smith describes the work as "very approachable, from the heart."

But look closer and you'll find a level of social critique that says that this "first Information Age generation," as Smith characterizes it, has been giving some deep thought to the forces that shaped it. Smith, who's 26, says that while he was happy to have grown up in that time period, he and his compatriots were "inundated with information" from videos, video games and the Internet.

In order to influence cultural direction, "the stream of communication needs to be changed," Smith says. "We need to find a better way to communicate. These artists use the language of commercials, mass production and cartoons -- the language we've grown up with -- to communicate this subversive political message in many cases."

At the end of a two-minute loop of imagery that races like Saturday morning cartoons "Li'l Puppy Peace," a fantastical large toyland being with video-goggled eyes and a big red doggy tongue that covers the entry to his interior, announces that he's sorry but now "I need to eat you" and requests that the viewer crawl inside. If this seems weird, he reminds, this is the "path we both started on a long time ago." It was made by Paper Rad -- a consortium of artists Jacob Ciocci, Jessica Ciocci and Ben Jones -- who created a mesmerizing storefront installation for last summer's arts festival.

	Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Bird Mask by Elyse Allen Click photo for larger image.

Paper Rad epitomizes the rock-and-hard place status many artists find themselves in. Alternative in origin, their style has become so internationally popular that they're being copied. "[They've] been fed back into the cycle," Smith says. They're aware of it, and would like to avoid it, Smith adds, "but you can't stop this machine."

Playing off this dog-chasing-tail economic cycle -- which pits what Smith calls "art trying to de-commodify itself" against the artists' need to survive within a capital-driven economy -- the curators have organized the most eclectic of the installations, loosely dubbed "merchandise area" comprising works by about 30 artists.

The objects (most $2 to $100) have the special allure of being slightly off-center and range from Noah Lyon's button that pictures a child-friendly spokes-symbol for a global fast food empire sporting Hitler's unmistakable scratch of mustache and Craig Dransfield's piquant panels (both artists also created individual installations and both participated in the festival's 2004 Graffiti Mural Invitational) to skateboards, DVDs, zines and T-shirts. Particularly eye-catching are Philadelphia resident Takatomo Tomita's quirky, small, cast and painted plastic figures, and items such as leg-warmers, masks and fingerless gloves by New Yorker Elyse Allen that are more akin to abstract fiber paintings.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Li'l Puppy Peace by paper Rad is part of the "Daydream Nation (Through the Perilous Night)" exhibition at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery on Liberty Avenue. Click photo for larger image.

One could miss Terry Young's provocative, darker installation back in the festival offices, which is part of the point. Black text with occasional red highlights printed on glossy white paper references institutional directives that might hang in the same place but speaks of the execution of Nick Berg in Iraq. The panels dominate the walls in height of hang and size but are obscured by a surround of paper and machine, their imperative diminished by the visual rush and the immediacy of its accompanying demands -- not unlike the way the news of global horror is nullified by its relentless quality and ultimately tepid sameness.

What ties it all together?

"Age, similar influences, the almost Warholian repetition," Smith answers. He also sees a regional focus (encompassing Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states) in this exhibition of what he says is a "new, distinctly American visual style."

Intuitively or willfully, these artists, and others like them, are reclaiming their right to shape their own identities by using the methodology of the system that's co-opted them. Having absorbed mass culture, they're regurgitating it redefined, assigning their own priorities and valuations along the way. Smith points out with reserved glee that the very act of press coverage in the form of a review subverts the power of media as it in essence reports on its own critique.

Inherent in this artistic expression are the symbols and concerns of a savvy new generation that maintains hope and expectation and is motivated by idealism but isn't blinded to problematic issues, including those that lurk within utopian visions themselves. From the vantage point of a generation or two removed, it looks like things are in good hands.

"Daydream" continues through Dec. 31 at 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown (push buzzer to be admitted to second floor gallery; special needs accessible). A closing reception with performance will be held from 6 p.m. to midnight during First Night Pittsburgh (Dec. 31). Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. The gallery will be closed Dec. 22-Dec. 27. Admission is free. For information, call 412-281-8723 or visit www.artsfestival.net. Smith has posted links to a dozen of the artists' Web sites at the festival site, www.artsfestival.net, and they're worth a visit on their own.

Carnegie International today

Tate Britain, London, has selected Jeremy Deller, a 2004-05 Carnegie International exhibitor, to receive this year's prestigious Turner Prize, which includes an award of $48,634. Deller installed clips of battle scenes in the Carnegie's miniature rooms and imprinted biblical verses on T-shirts and plastic bags that are being sold in the gift shop. Another International exhibitor, Kutlug Ataman, was one of three runners-up and received $9,725. Ataman was awarded the Carnegie Prize for his video installation "Kuba." The International continues through March 20 at Carnegie Museum of Art.

Extra PCA hours

The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts has added extra days for exhibition visitors and holiday sale shoppers. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m. Sundays, 1 to 7 p.m. Dec. 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 14-16, and noon to 7 p.m. Dec. 20-23. For information, call 412-361-0873 or visit www.pittsburgharts.org.