Spotlight: Garden of Metamorphosis

Ongoing: Famous among avant-gardists in his native Japan, Tetsumi Kudo (1935-90) was largely unknown in the United States until the opening this fall of Walker Art Center's expansive retrospective of his sculpture, constructions and performance relics. It's a curiously engaging show filled with amusing oddities (a pink baby carriage followed by a motorized "brain" on a leash) and strange installations suggestive of the psychological trauma that beset the Japanese after World War II. Among the latter are aquariums and bird cages filled with mutant flowers and ghoulish (artificial) body parts -- eyes, hands, penises, noses and withered faces -- that recall the destruction that ushered in the nuclear era. In the swinging, youth-oriented 1960s, Kudo was a fixture on the international art scene in Europe and Japan, where his sensational, sexualized performances were greeted with bemused curiosity. From the vantage of 2008, his intensely personal relics are a haunting indictment of the 20th century's appalling slaughter and failure of civilization. Heavy stuff, but enlivened by Kool-Aid colors, blacklight and a buoyant air of whimsy. Check it out. (11 a.m.-5 p.m.Tue., Wed. and Fri.-Sun. 11 a.m.- 9 p.m. Thu., Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls. $10 gallery admission. 612-375-7600 or www.walkerart.org.)