Four Minneapolis shows to launch the fall season for art lovers

With chillier fall weather comes the opening of art exhibitions across the Twin Cities.

These four Minneapolis shows — two of photographs, one of paintings and one sculptural — take on subjects like peering into people's homes, remembering adolescence in Tokyo, exploring Indigenous identity and mixing horror and sci-fi images into abstract painting.

If you didn't know that photographer Gail Albert Halaban met with all the subjects she photographs through the windows of their apartments in Paris, Rome, New York, Istanbul and elsewhere around the world, you'd think she was a voyeuristic creep.

Despite the randomness of each scene she captures from her camera in a building across the street, the result is always stunning and decisive. In the Istanbul photograph, our eyes zero in on a solitary human figure — a woman with black hair standing near an open window, wearing only her bra and underwear, her left hand on her head. All the other structures in this photo lack people, or capture blue reflective windows, phenomenal considering the city's population of more than 15 million. I wondered what these photos would have been if they were shot in neighborhoods that didn't portray idyllic lives.

Through Nov. 6, Weinstein Hammons Gallery, 908 W. 46th St., Mpls., free, open by appointment, 612-822-1722 or weinsteinhammons.com

Skateboarding, early '80s punk songs on old-school mixtapes and artist/architect Isamu Noguchi influence this hypnotic solo exhibition by Tokyo-born artist and professor Tetsuya Yamada. Nostalgia and hazy memory come through in a muted color palette.

Two planks of wood painted white with the black-stenciled text "INDEPENDENT" and "MERITOCRACY" spray-painted onto them are marked with fresh skateboard scuff marks. A smooth, small-scale ceramic skate park sits atop a stand. A miniature, fingerboard skate park with half-pipes, handrails and more takes over the gallery's basement. Yamada had professional fingerboarders come in and ride, transforming memories into something new.

Through Oct. 3, Hair + Nails, 2222 E. 35th St., Mpls., hairandnailsart.com

In artist and professor Tom Jones' nine digital photo portraits of Ho-Chunk people, ranging in age and gender, the subjects either look at the viewer or off into the distance. Each person is surrounded by floral, geometric or other beadwork patterns, giving them a halo of sorts, and representing the presence of the ancestors. (In the back, a color pencil portrait diverges from this ongoing series.) Although it would have been interesting to know more about each subject, the transcendental message comes through.

Through Oct. 16, Bockley Gallery, 2123 W. 21st St., Mpls. bockleygallery.com

There's a remarkably strong aesthetic mood in Lee Noble's solo exhibition that recalls grungy indie coffee shops, old CD and VHS stores, and midnight screenings of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at local cinemas back when that kind of thing happened. A recent MFA graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a former assistant for filmmaker/author Miranda July, Noble lived among the stars in L.A. for 10 years before moving to Minneapolis.

His paintings mix abstraction with cutouts from obscure 1980s sci-fi and horror-film fanzines. But why is a woman's bare chest collaged next to a robot or demon? Why is there gothic-font text with the word "prophecy" below a menorah? Collaging these on top of abstract paintings leads your eye around images that once might have felt shocking, but now just feel like reminders of another time in our current world of media oversaturation.

Through Oct. 2. Dreamsong Gallery, 1237 NE. 4th St., Mpls., dreamsong.art