GALLERY GLANCE

Vera Klement's work over the years has been a painterly meditationon war and the human consequences of destructive regimes. Her latestwork, now at Maya Polsky Gallery, continues her approach to combininglarge paintings of iconic, symbolic forms, which appear as memorialobjects, with smaller vignettes. Together these compositions createmood poems. This time, she's using photographs, which she sands andscratches to create a sense of age and decay.

The works on paper, a series she calls "War Monodies," referringto the Greek dirge for a single voice, feature severed heads comparedwith forest scenes. The simile between heads and fallen treebranches, body parts and tree limbs, is a carryover from her earlierwork, which draws comparisons between bathtubs and bodies, urns andthe ashes they're meant for. All sacred vessels, these earlier visualcomparisons work. Here, though, nature at large is the point ofcomparison and it seems too broad, while the photographs introduce aliteralness that does not belong in her otherwise highly metaphoricand poetic work.

Vera Klement, Maya Polsky Gallery, 215 W. Superior; (312) 440-0055. Through April 25.

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Since 1980, Othello Anderson has been photographing Lake Michiganin every season, every weather condition and at every time of day --including pitch-black night -- from the same Fullerton Avenue vantagepoint. Over the years, he's made thousands of photos, and a smallsampling of these -- just 250 -- opens today at City Gallery.

"Lake Affect: Photographs by Othello Anderson," City Gallery,Historic Water Tower, 806 N. Michigan; (312) 742-0808. Through April28.

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"The Rise and Fall of the National Barn Dance" is an installationthat pays good-humored homage to a time in the 1920s when Chicago wasthe unlikely home to a lively country music scene. The show, whichcoincides with the 80th anniversary April 19 of the first "BarnDance" broadcast on WLS radio, features allegorical portraitpaintings of old radio personalities, text, sculpture of liquordecanters, multimedia historical dioramas and soundworks. Also ondisplay to enhance the semi-faux historical impact of the show willbe real ephemera from the old radio show era, as well as inventedartifacts. The exhibit is a journey of the imagination as well as adeconstructed meditation of the nature of how we tell history.

"The Rise and Fall of the National Barn Dance," Jon Langford andRob Lentz, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington; (312) 744-1424. Through May 30.

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Charlie B. Throne's miniature dioramas and relief drawings areconstructed and displayed within lipstick tubes, like ships inbottles but 10 times smaller, averaging about 31/2 inches apiece.

Charlie B. Thorne, Belloc Lowndes Gallery, 835 W. Washington;(312) 455-1040. Through April 30.