Patrick Painter Inc.'s poetic little group show includes just five works, each by an artist who tried to express human emotion in a guttural way. The oldest is a laughing bronze face, sculpted by Medardo Rosso in 1890. One of the newest is a funny 1978 drawing by Mike Kelley of a lady, a lot of blots and a fish. It's titled Mrs. Gorky's Butthole, a reference to the mother with whom painter Arshile Gorky was obsessed in the 1920s and '30s. The point? History is always doubling back on itself, and self-expression usually involves harkening back to what came before. 2525 Michigan Ave., Unit A8, Santa Monica; through May 12. (310) 264-5988, patrickpainter.com.

Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: March 24. Continues through May 12, 2012

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