Every once in a while the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) surveys the local art scene and puts on a show of the best and the brightest of the local artistic talent. The museum has done it six times in the past 25 years. The very first one, called “A San Diego Exhibition: Forty-two Emerging Artists” took place in 1985. The last time was 2000 when the museum organized a show called “Off Broadway: New Art From Downtown San Diego.” In addition, San Diego artists have occasionally been featured in international group exhibitions displayed at the museum and several San Diego artists have been given solo “Cerca Series” exhibitions, such as Lael Corbin, who is currently on view through June 20 at the MCASD downtown Jacobs building location. This year, the museum will host another local survey which is called “Here Not There: San Diego Artists Now.” It will feature 43 artists or art collectives that reflect the wide range of art practice going on in the area. These 43 were selected from 230 prospects who submitted interest. They were selected by associate curator Lucia Sanroman, who conducted studio and gallery visits plus investigations of social and art networks. The exhibit will focus on emerging new artists and mid-career artists who have been under-recognized. The artwork shown will include painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, new media, conceptual and performance art. The overall theme or goal of the exhibit is to try to identify and perhaps somehow link the various sites of artistic activity, each with their own disparate centers and surrounding communities, which may not overlap or inseminate each other. “The San Diego community will be pleasantly surprised by the caliber of the art at the show,” said Susy Bielak, a video artist featured in the show. Micha Cárdenas, a performance artist involved, thinks the show is “having a positive impact on the San Diego art scene by providing energy, excitement and attention, which is very much needed.” Cárdenas, who is also a brilliant theorist of socially-engaged art, thinks the show is particularly important and relevant right now because, “San Diego has become a city of fundamental splits and fissures. It is a plane of fractures, like a shattered glass, a complex space in-between many flows from Tijuana to Los Angles to Arizona. The artwork in this show demonstrates the lived experience of this space of fractures and fissures but also in-betweens and intersections and speculates on possible futures in the face of our current state of social emergency.” The exhibit opened with a sneak preview on June 5. The regular show began on June 6 and continues until Sept. 19. There will be a special event related to the show on Saturday, June 19 from 7 to 10 p.m. when an evening of performance art, which is a key component of the overall exhibit, will unfold. Some of the performance artists featured will include Agitprop, Brian Black, Ryan Bulis, Micha Cárdenas and Elle Mehrmand, Ingram Ober, and Tristan Shone. Cost is $7 or free with museum membership. The highlight of this special event will be the performance by Cárdenas and Mehrmand, called “Virus Circus” which will explore the possible future of virus hysteria, biopolitics, medical monopoly and control over bodies, using an alternative reality framework. The interesting part of this piece is that Cárdenas and Mehrmand will move about and interact while wired to computers and video feed which will generate animated images of them on a large screen in the tradition of the popular sci fi movie “Avatar.” For further information call (858) 454-3541 or visit mcasd.org.