My initial take on Johnson’s work, which I saw for the first time in the 2006 DeCordova Annual, was that he was going after intimations of human presence within virtually abstract, geometric spaces — a kind of urban archæologist of the living. And though it’s true that human elements pepper his photographs — a portrait painting can be detected in one of the Eight Windows, and a fraction of a person’s leg is to be spied in one of the small windows that dot the expansive, shadowy building in Leg — I’m no longer convinced of the importance of these hints of humanity. They’re poignant, but they aren’t the point. The seductive appeal of Johnson’s photographs lies in their muted sensuality, in the palpable textures and soothing hues of his buildings’ skins.
In the back gallery at Kayafas, Gary Green shoots fields of grass — some on fire but mostly not — that extend uninterrupted to the horizon. Green keeps his focus on the foreground, on the network of individual blades, inviting us to examine the exactitude of the minutest details. His eye is keen, and his are sensibilities refined, but I’m not yet convinced of the importance of his enterprise.
‘Pat Keck and Bert Antonio’ | Genovese/Sullivan Gallery | 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston | Through June 30
‘Joe Johnson: City Pictures’ | ‘Gary Green: “Two Landscapes’ | Gallery Kayafas | 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston | Through June 23
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Kraftwerk, The illusionist, Locomotion commotion, More 
- Kraftwerk
The same early-20th-century Vienna that eventually produced Freud, Schoenberg, and Wittgenstein was also the site of a renaissance in arts and crafts.
- The illusionist
Kapoor’s work looks like nothing in reproduction; you have to experience it in person to get it.
- Locomotion commotion
The DeCordova Museum’s “Trainscape: Installation Art for Model Railroads” is a great, wild, flawed 14-artist circus.
- Walk on by
MIT’s campus is dotted with art — 46 works are listed on its most recent “Public Art Collection Map,” a document that you can download if you want to know what that big thing in front of the Stata Center is, or who made the cube-like piece in front of the library.
- Of angels and planets
Arthur Ganson’s work makes you slow down and consider how things are done.
- Following the evidence
“CSI: The Experience,” like a B-movie, is best if you don’t think too hard about it.
- Everyday use
Two new exhibits take design — the familiar background of our daily lives — and give it immediacy in a gallery setting.
- Last days of New Alliance
Wandering around the Fenway’s soon-to-be-demolished RFT building feels like spelunking through the bowels of Boston’s hard-rock scene.
- New moon
They blew down our Deli Haus, plucked our Lily’s, changed our Channel, exterminated our Rat, death-rayed our Man Ray, and (uh . . . ) union-busted our Local 186.
- Dimensions of depth
WORKNOT. Who doesn’t like the sound of that, apart from feudal lords and corporate management?
- Paint, by numbers
Mark Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure is that rare console mishmash that works.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Culture and Lifestyle, Games, Hobbies and Pastimes, More
, Culture and Lifestyle, Games, Hobbies and Pastimes, Visual Arts, Card Games, Sculpture, Less
