The two exhibitions now at the Museum...

SAN DIEGO — The two exhibitions now at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park are an egregious mismatch. The subject of both is body adornment that is revelatory of inner natures, but that link is not strong enough to join them harmoniously. Pride of place, moreover, was given to the more exotic, not to say sensational, of the exhibitions. And the retrospective of Judith Golden, “one of America’s most colorful contemporary artists,” according to museum publicity, has thereby been demeaned.

Anything would seem tame after the dramatic Cibachrome images of tattooed bodies by Japanese photographer Masato Sudo. It is a measure of Judith Golden’s strength as an artist that her work is not vitiated in comparison.

In most of the works exhibited, Golden uses photographic self-portraits as the basis for the sort of self-transformation that is available to most of us only in fantasy, hence the title “Judith Golden: Myths and Masquerades.” Ingeniously using a variety of media, she creates collages in which the object (or photograph) means more because she radically alters it.

Through alteration, allowing a type of role playing outside of herself, Golden explores her identity as a woman and artist living in a particular society and time and yet able, also, to project herself into alien scenes.

In the earliest works, “Self-Portrait Fantasy Series No. 1, Chameleon,” Golden appears in 17 guises, half as a woman, including “Faye Dunaway, warm,” “Sweet Sue” and “Red Rose,” and half as a man, including “Clark” (Gable), “World War II Ace” and “The Little Tramp, Charlie Chaplin.” The transitional image at the midpoint of the installation is an androgynous “Marlene” (Dietrich) holding a big cigar.

Golden explores additional roles through the union of her image with magazine covers and “B” movie posters. She appears variously as Mary Hartman, Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt and in such films as “She Devil” and “Bombay Clipper.” The series represented by these last is the least effective in the show, perhaps because Golden’s fantasies are not equal to Hollywood’s. She appears awkward with posed film stars.

“The Forbidden Fantasies,” parodies of Oriental aphrodisiacal paintings, in which the artist appears with such hot numbers as Pablo Picasso and Sigmund Freud, are gratuitous.

In her Cibachrome prints since 1981, Golden creates memorable images by focusing on others’ features. Among them “Karen and Frank” is a standout resonating with sinister sexuality. Frank, by the way, is a calico Persian cat who appears about to jump into the viewer’s space.

In the “Persona,” “Cycles” and “The Elements” suites, Golden returns to using photographs as the basis of extraordinary and beautiful mixed-media works. Where she presented the early “Chameleons” stitched in vinyl covers, she presents these most recent works in traditional frames.

She ignores the distinction between object and format, however, in the process of alteration. Colors, forms and lines read arbitrarily across the components. They are as a group the most beautiful, artistic and gratifying works in the exhibition because they are strong personal statements, not statements of personality. The artist has freed herself of self to explore broader issues in art and life.

A badly designed, modest catalogue with an insubstantial essay is an unusual publication to accompany such a retrospective exhibition. Fortunately, the Friends of Photography in Carmel will publish a more substantial study on Golden’s work later this year.

Masato Sudo’s 45 Cibachrome images (five life-sized), entitled as a group “Ransho (Indigo Body),” are dramatic representations of tattooed men (mostly) and women (a few).

The blue, green, yellow and red forms on Japanese bodies in various groupings are frequently gorgeous. The works of art are unusual in that they are made on the skin of living human beings rather than on canvas or paper, but they are the real thing and the photographs are copies. They could as well be appreciated in a book.

The inclusion of these works, added to the schedule only four months ago, has resulted in two crowded installations. They are, however, as installations sober and elegant even though their contents are discordant.

The exhibitions continue through April 6.

Gallery Eight (7464 Girard Ave.), which through its consistently outstanding exhibitions puts to rest the question of whether crafts are art, is showing works by five major craft artists, all of whom have been identified by the Legislature as “Living Treasures of California.” The exhibition honors one of their number in particular, woodworker Sam Maloof, a 1985 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

The honoree is represented in the exhibition by examples of his immaculately crafted pieces of furniture: a rocking chair, a music stand for two, a chair with a padded seat and a small side table. The works are as sensual to the touch as they are pleasing to the eye. Maloof makes furniture that is also sculpture, not sculpture that is incidentally furniture.

Ceramist Laura Andreson is represented by traditional small vessels; Arline Fisch, by delicate jewelry, especially her knitted wire forms; Svetozar Radakovich, by pieces of jewelry, which are sculptures in small formats; and wood lathe artisan Bob Stocksdale, by satiny smooth wood bowls.

The exhibition continues through April 26.