The Cornell Art Faculty Exhibit at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art samples the creative output and traditional and nontraditional approaches of 15 faculty members, all of them working artists.

Liz Emrich, a collections assistant at the museum who helped curate the exhibit, says the museum invites current College of Architecture, Art and Planning faculty to submit their recent work for the biennial show, which runs through March 12 in the Lenore E. and Burton M. Gold Gallery.

Many of the works are open to the viewer's interpretation, with some common threads in their effects, such as juxtaposition of elements and images. Wilka Roig's "Six Seasons" pairs snapshots of unidentified female friends in various social settings with correlating scenes from the television series "Sex and the City."

Of the sculptural works on display, Roberto Bertoia's "La Posa -- Element" shows meticulous craftsmanship, with a smoothly sanded modernist structure suspended inside a more rough-hewn, joined wooden framework. Will Pergl's aptly titled "Bridge" balances a large wooden yoke atop two small video monitors, each with three-dimensional animation of a chain extended over water.

And Xiaowen Chen's thoughtful mixed-media piece "Father and Son" suggests generational and communication-specific opposites: On one end of a long, paint-spattered bench sits a closed birdhouse; on the other, an open birdcage spilling over with Chinese text printed on tickertape, barely revealing a small video monitor inside the cage, its screen showing a hand scrolling through a book of more lines of text.

Personal remembrance is at the heart of Renate Ferro's installation "Anamnesis: Lyotard Revisited," documenting a weekend Ferro spent with French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard in 1983. Video, transferred from Super 8 film and narrated by Ferro, is projected on three walls of a small room built in one corner of the gallery and furnished with a tableaux of a writing desk, books and other effects related to Lyotard.

"The conditions for creative work at Cornell are extraordinary for the intellectual and critical resources available for artists willing to engage them," says Buzz Spector, chair of the Department of Art and a working artist, in a statement accompanying the exhibition. Spector also points out conflicting perceptions of artists in the academy, explaining how artists who teach have it easy, have it hard, are fortunate and are out of luck.

Other faculty represented include Barry Perlus, Gregory Page, Raymond Dalton, Todd McGrain, Elizabeth Meyer, Jean Locey, Graham McDougal, Carl Ostendarp and W. Stanley Taft.