Aside from a popular style of folk...

Aside from a popular style of folk primitivism, very little is known in this country about the visual arts of Yugoslavia.

The Anuska Galerie’s (2400 Kettner Blvd.) current show takes a small but worthy step toward filling this void. The show (through Oct. 24) introduces seven contemporary Yugoslavian artists, six of whom collaborate on performances and exhibitions under the collective name “Zvono” (the bell), also the name of this show.

As seen in a videotape at the gallery, the group’s activities include confronting pedestrians or soccer audiences with small doses of art and recording their responses. With two exceptions, the accessibility and social relevance of this form of encounter do not carry over into the artists’ individual works, which range from the sensational through the surreal to the sedate and the silly.

Sead Cizmic and Sadko Hadzihasanovic paint scenes of domestic drama, the former showing domesticity as a form of benign urban malaise, the latter exposing the domestic setting as an arena for sexual exploitation.

Cizmic’s three oils on linen portray couples seated together, sharing cigarettes, drinks and even some physical intimacy--but showing no evidence of communication. They seem locked in separate worlds, their gazes never meeting. The environments they share are exuberantly colored and patterned, as if to demonstrate that the pairs share style at least, if not substance.

Hadzihasanovic’s three mixed media paintings reveal a more horrific version of domestic tension. All three show a woman in various states of undress, her lurid purplish skin gleaming against the surrounding gray walls. Smears of blood on the walls and floor and the presence of a dark, mangy dog set a tone of latent violence. The works are engaging and unsettling, for in each view, the woman confronts the viewer directly as she poses and undresses, rendering him/her a participant in her victimization.

Also included in the show are three attractive ink drawings by Biljana Gavranovic, an interesting steel-and-rope construction by Aleksandar Sasa Bukvic, self-indulgent photographs by Kemal Hadzic and a series of paintings/constructions by Narcis Kantardzic that simply try too hard.

Non-Zvono member Grozdana Nikic is represented by “On the Beach,” a sand and terra cotta installation that is worth a moment’s chuckle.

A common astrological sign is not the only thing that unites the “Three Scorpios,” showing at the Nivada Gallery (428 Brookes Ave.).

All three young artists express a vague sense of dissatisfaction or anger through an aggressive and often cryptic series of gestural markings. Of the group, only San Diegan Gary Ghirardi effectively channels his passion, imbuing his work with a coolness that shows technical if not emotional resolve.

His two works in the show (through Oct. 18) consist of molded concrete, incised, textured, pigmented and inlaid with glass-covered drawing or collage fragments. “C.W.P.,” a standing piece in the form of a tall tombstone, reads as a wry monument to the chaos of warfare. Its scribblings cohere in the form of tanks, cannons and other heavy artillery. In this and Ghirardi’s other work, the violent, explosive distribution of forms balances against a subtle internal structure, resulting in objects of intriguing visual and tactile variety as well as psychological force.

Neither Craig Roper of New York nor Daniel Adams of Los Angeles matches the power and cohesiveness of Ghirardi’s work.

Roper’s paintings are slightly charming but facile odes to mundane scenes of pouring water and steaming coffee.

Adams’ seven works in the show present the fullest picture of the lazy, false profundity underlying the hype that inflates so many artists in the current scene. Written across his automatic visual musings are short phrases such as “Forget the Papers” and “In This Day and Age” that reinforce the emptiness and bleakness of the imagery. Together, these words and images form the diary of a young man determined to capitalize on both his Angst and his apathy, though neither yields any insight.