'Shadows and Dust' opens at Form + Content Gallery in Minneapolis

You've got your dust. You've got your shadow. For humans of a certain poetic bent, you really couldn't ask for better metaphysical shorthand: For centuries, we've used these two anti-materials to describe — lazily — everything from ghosts and death to cosmic insignificance and the ephemeral passing of experience (cue those lyrics by the band Kansas). So it's nice to see book artist and printmaker Jody Williams get archival with this stuff, cataloging and ordering them in a new exhibition that feels both scientific and spiritual. Using various collection methods — atmospheric photography, etchings that blend dusty specks with digital dots, vials of dust samples arranged in mixed-media boxes — Williams succeeds in documenting dust and shadow as both substance and as absence. It feels like she's captured the very real silt of some imagined spectral movement. (Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Sat., Form + Content Gallery, 210 N. 2nd St., #104, Mpls. Free. formandcontent.org) GREGORY J. SCOTT