Given current sensitivities surrounding the thorny issue of immigration, one might be puzzled to find Mexican artist Marcos Ramirez (also known as "Erre") erecting a towering Trojan Horse at the border between Tijuana and San Diego. As legend has it, the original Trojan Horse enabled Greek troops to clandestinely enter Troy and lay waste to the city, all under the guise of a gift of surrender. But it isn't a sneak attack that Erre is promoting; far from it. His horse - entitled "Toy an Horse," a model of which is found in "TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art" at Memorial Art Gallery - has heads at both ends, one facing the United States, the other Mexico. And where the original Trojan Horse concealed its violent intent, we can easily peer into the belly of Erre's horse. It's simply wooden slats; no secrets, no deception. Erre's horse, like the exhibition itself, promotes the movement across the border as a gift offered in both directions.

It's also possible for the Trojan Horse to be an apt symbol of a show organized solely by the artists' ethnicity. It could be a gift worth celebrating, but the potential exists for a flop that puts artist before art, cultural identity before quality of work. That's certainly not the case here. Drawn from the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, this is an exhibition packed with emotion and metaphorical resonance; a snapshot of a community of individuals addressing complicated issues - the borders of geography, politics, and culture - in clear and cogent voices.

Dozens of San Diego artist Perry Vasquez's posters in garish neons festoon the gallery entrance. The poster is a riff on R. Crumb's '60s era "Keep on Truckin'" comic, only the man doing the truckin' in this version wears a sombrero, his outstretched leg spanning a dashed line denoting the U.S.-Mexican border. Before the wall sit several plaster sculptures of this crossin' character, cleverly named "R. Carumba". Nearby is Vasquez's "Crossin' Manifesto," promoting the necessity to "cross borders of political, social, linguistic, cultural, economic, and technological construction" and holding the action of crossing as a "basic human right." Provocative, certainly, but also undeniably true.

The overwhelming visual presence of Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle's "Paternity Test (Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego)" belies its simple message. Assembled as a grid, Manglano-Ovalle presents large, colorful renderings of the DNA tests of the 30 members of the board of directors at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. It's certainly the convergence of science and art, but beyond that link are less-obvious insinuations of identity, how we represent our exterior self, and the necessity of looking beyond surface appearances to find the beauty within.

According to the museum, "TRANSactions" exists to "dispel the myth that Latino artists are a homogeneous group with common experiences and ambitions." And although the Latin and Latino communities' relationship with the United States is a strong thread, it's not the show's exclusive theme. Gabriel Orozco's images raise global questions about consumption and greed in the face of poverty. One image shows a discarded futon curled over on itself, looking much like a person's body would were they huddling for warmth. The show's most powerful piece looks simultaneously inward and out. Chilean-born Alfredo Jaar's "Six Seconds / It is Difficult" first arrests the eye, then holds the heart in a relentless grip. Two backlit transparencies hang together; one a larger-than-life but slightly blurred image of a young girl, the other much smaller and showing only a phrase gleaned from a William Carlos Williams poem: "It is difficult". The girl's back is to us, and there is pain in her posture; she has just learned her parents are dead, victims of the Rwandan genocide. Jaar's work looks beyond North American culture clashes and demands we confront the dreadful complications that evolve from arbitrary borders and illogical cultural prejudice around the world.

There is a loose, almost comic joy in many pieces, and it feels like an attempt to disarm our differences through humor. Gustavo Artigas tackles heady cultural issues through a stranger to the art world: sports. One of his two videos featured in his piece "The Rules of the Game" features four groups of young men - two Mexican soccer squads and two U.S. basketball teams - playing simultaneous games of each sport on the same court in the same gym. Despite the complicated situation, the two teams make it work and the results are riveting. The floor is packed with activity as soccer balls, basketballs, and players careen about in a beautiful chaos. What could serve as a better metaphor of cultural cross-pollination? It can be crowded, unpredictable, and complicated - but it can work, and it is exhilarating to watch.

"TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art"

Through December 30

Memorial Art Gallery

500 University Avenue

276-8900, mag.rochester.edu