The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Department of Visual Arts is graduating 19 master of fine arts students this year and a show featuring their work is on exhibit at the UCSD Art Gallery. There is a quite a mix of different styles and types of art in this show with a little of something for everyone, a parsimony of meaning and a glimpse into what the future of what art may look like. Vincent Manganello’s large, colorful abstract geometric painting of concentric circles is fashionably pleasing and seductive to the eye, reminding one of some of Dale Chihuly’s brush work. Jesse Mockrin has a nice, if provocative, painting of three naked men floating in the clouds in front of a rich blue sky. Zac Monday built his own little room as an installation piece. When you open the door you are greeted with a wooden desk, mirror, closet and lamp. On the walls are many crocheted masks that Monday uses in his performance pieces. The room even smells good — like fragrant candles. On opening night, Monday wandered and sat around the gallery in a gray crocheted sea monster suit. Tim Schwartz built an enormous wooden card catalog, perhaps a Guinness World Record, filled with file cards of all his ipod music. Rich Bott found four old Western Union telegram pads and typed some new things with an old typewriter to accompany a rather dark charcoal drawing. In the back video room there were three films alternating. One was a collection of found footage collated, without a great deal of unity, by Dolissa Medina on the Tejano music singer Selena Quintanilla, who was killed by the president of her fan club. There was also an ethnographic film shot by Merve Kayan on the Turkish coast at a resort which, though basically silly, had many interesting cultural images. The best film, an 18-minute snippet taken from a feature-length production, was the excellent historical documentary of the island of Java made by Rachel Thompson. This piece, which could have aired on KPBS, had many historical photographs and some excellent footage of Balinese dancing accompanied by Gamelan music. But probably the best work, the most serious — and that which showed the most critical thinking and keen perception — was located in the least conspicuous place in the gallery, the very back wall and out the back door on an adjoining siding. These were the two murals, drawn and then painted in black and white acrylic, by Louis Schmidt. His were very simple paintings of crowds of naked men and women walking under the shadow of office buildings. The people were all slightly plump, with their mouths open in aghast or disbelief. They had eyes but no eyeballs, and the feeling was that even though they were able to follow the herd, they were all dumbfounded and lost. Their nakedness seems to represent their vulnerability and fragility — their unseeing eyes, their lack of personal vision. They were all going to work for someone else without really having a life of their own. Without identity or individuality, Schmidt’s characters lead a life fashioned by the invisible forces of an authoritarian society. Schmidt was present for the opening, sporting an orange windbreaker, beige trousers, straw hat, spectacles and a thick, frizzy beard, looking the part of a school teacher from way down South in the 1920s. Schmidt is a very articulate and verbose individual who can clearly specify what he is trying to do. “I usually use paper and pencil — the simplest of means to create art,” he said. “My work might best fit in with skateboard art or record cover art. Its something like the San Francisco comic book tradition exemplified by artists such as Robert Crumb of Zap comics. “My work is really about a critique of transcendence. It represents the failure of history , meaning that all our philosophies — religious, political and economic systems — have failed us. We are not any less violent or destructive of ourselves or the planet than we ever were. And on a personal level, if you take away the drug of consuming, we are all pretty unhappy. For instance, I don’t know anyone who really likes their job.” Schmidt brought along some of his pamphlet art — small Xeroxed and stapled works of his art work to give out, with such titles as: “Move along people, nothing to feel here” or “Everyone you know is currently dead.” If some of Schmidt’s work were to end up in a gallery next to Picasso someday, it would not surprise in the least. The show runs until July 2. For more information visit http://universityartgallery.ucsd.edu/.