A & E

The first, which closes Sunday, celebrates all things Pittsburgh in honor of the 250th birthday of Pittsburgh.

Titled "Pittsburgh Through AAP Eyes," it includes 95 works created by contemporary regional artists that portray various aspects of Pittsburgh, past and present.

That means one can expect to see things ranging from a variety of paintings, prints and photographs of bridges and steel mills to quite a few works that reference various contemporary aspects of the 'Burgh.

The best of the bridge works is Lilli June Nieland's "Afternoon on the Mon," an oil painting that presents a bird's-eye view of a Pittsburgh bridge in much the same way as California artist Wayne Thiebaud has painted the steep streets of San Francisco -- upright, dynamic and full of lively color.

Many of the pieces address contemporary aspects of the city, as in Frank Flynn's thistle-covered chair sculpture titled "Margaret Morrison's Endowed Chair," an obvious reference to Carnegie Mellon University. And then there are the humorous works that make fun of some of Pittsburghers' famously favorite foods, such as the Primanti Bros. sandwich in John Patrick's digital prints "No. 2 Bestseller," and David Watts' "Pierogi Lounge."

The latter piece is just plain genius, consisting of three large, felt, pierogi-shaped pillows that quite possibly could become Pittsburgh's version of the beanbag chair.

Another group show ending soon is the "Regional Student Juried Exhibition" produced by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. The group will hold its annual convention March 19 through 22 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

This exhibition showcases undergraduate and graduate student work in ceramics from the region. Because the ceramics council strives to promote and improve the ceramic arts through education, research and creative practice, this exhibition really does showcase the best work being done by students at the moment.

For example, installation-sized works like SUNY New Paltz student Kierstin Egge's abstract piece "Transition," and "4,768 Pieces of Porcelain Slip" by Sean Gallagher of Rhode Island School of Design, really push the envelope. Egge did so by making clay scrims out of gauze drenched in clay slip and then firing them, and Gallagher by creating what looks like an oriental rug out of a similar slip material, only in porcelain, which he squirted from ketchup bottles prior to firing.

The latter piece looks like one object but is actually composed of the number of units listed in the title, stacked on top of each other, five layers thick.

In contrast, there are quite a number of vessels, as expected. But even they push the limits. A whiskey set by Rachelle Guenther, also of SUNY New Paltz, is a sleek, modern answer to which decanter to use to serve your favorite well-aged whiskey. And stylish pitchers by Seth Payne of Alfred University, as well as wood-fired bottles by Anthony Bove of Bowling Green State University, are the perfect alternative for your rye.

A few of the artists chose to reference childhood but in very unusual ways. For example, there is something cruel about Indiana University Bloomington student Rachel Bleil's "Bound Together" bears. And the same can be said of her "Twisted Bear." They are oh so cute, yet oh so creepy.

And Laura Thompson of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has captured a similar spirit in "PS106," a group portrait of a sort that puts together a cast of ceramic characters, some looking quite peculiar, and arranged as if in a yearly school photograph.

Word has it that many visitors to the opening of this exhibition were seen with their jaws dropping -- it's really that good of a show.

Finally, an exhibition of site-specific installation works takes up the entirety of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts building, but you wouldn't know it -- at least at first glance. That's because the pieces in Group A's "Hide-n-Seek" exhibit utilize the nontraditional spaces at the center -- everywhere except the white walls inside the galleries.

All other public spaces were up for grabs by the dozen artists in this playful exhibit who encourage the viewer to "seek" out their artworks.

Some are really hard to find. And some are surprisingly right out in the open. But all can be located thanks to a map provided at the front desk.

Adam Welch's paintings definitely are of the latter category, but you might not recognize them at first. Minimalist paintings, they blend into the walls they are hung on, being painted of the very same colors.

And Adrienne Heinrich's piece "Impossible to Be Seen" is as the title suggests. The artist has ingeniously placed placards in lieu of artworks that describe works that are not there (and never were), as in a Pierre Bonnard painting that is supposedly "on loan" to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Still, look around, and you will find art in this exhibition everywhere, from Connie Cantor's reinterpretation of the men's and women's restrooms on the second floor to Anna Divinksy's "In the Spore of the Moment" piece, which fills the rafters above the stairwell with what looks like a fungal growth made from tiny tubes of cloth.

This last exhibition will stay up for a while longer, and could stay up all year as far as this reviewer is concerned. It's quite an ingenious little show, in concept and execution.

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