Forget Rome, for the Jancar family, all roads lead to Chinatown. Tom Jancar has been a fixture in the L.A. gallery landscape since the 1970's; his current Chung King Road location has become an epicenter of conceptual and performance-based art. But he's not the only Jancar on the block anymore, and the competition is fierce. Daughter Ava has moved in around the corner, transferring her formerly S.F.-based Jancar Jones Gallery a bit closer to home. With a background that includes growing up at the family store, studying art history at UCLA, and working for Jack Hanley up north, her famously small but salient gallery, in partnership with designer Eric Jones, was a popular art-circuit destination there — but their loss is L.A.'s gain. The First Show opens Saturday in the Chinatown contemporary-art cul-de-sac her father's gallery anchors; a group show that reflects both the gallery's rarified aesthetic and conceptual sensibility, and the national scope of its program. The four artists included — Claire Nereim, Kate Owens, Sean Talley, Alice Tippit — hail from Chicago, London, L.A., and Oakland, and present sculptures and drawings that combine object and idea in various approaches to deconstructing the language of basic shapes and manipulated perceptions — a recognizably Jancar-esque, idea-based take on formal issues with its own stamp of youthful, edgy wit. Welcome back! Jancar Jones Gallery, 506 Bernard St., Chinatown 90012. Sat., Sept. 3, 6-9 p.m.; exhibit runs Thurs.,-Sat., thru Oct. 1; free. 213-259-3770. jancarjones.com.

Wednesdays-Saturdays. Starts: Sept. 3. Continues through Oct. 1, 2011

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