Friday, May 8 marked the beginning of the Rose Art Museum's summer semester of shows. The museum is currently hosting an exhibition of works by Alexis Rockman entitled "The Weight of Air," as well as two shows entitled "The New Authentics: Artists of the Post-Jewish Generation" and "Paper Trail II: Passing Through?Clouds.""The Weight of Air" is Rockman's first major solo museum show in the United States. Rockman, slated to win the annual Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residency Award on June 5, is known for surreal depictions of the relationship between nature and human culture. This latest exhibition showcases a new direction in Rockman's work. The 50 new paintings and works on paper featured in "The Weight of Air" show a new, looser, flowing style in Rockman's work.

"The New Authentics" includes works by 16 American contemporary artists and is curated by Staci Boris and organized by the?Spertus Museum at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. Works by artists like David Altmejd, Cheselyn Amato and Jin Meyerson were chosen to examine the Jewish experience in American culture.

"Paper Trail II" is the second exhibition in a series where artists choose works from the Rose's works on paper collection to exhibit with the artist's own works. Odili Donald Odita, a Nigerian-born artist known for his abstract paintings, curates this show. His colorful, choppy abstract works will hang side-by-side with drawings by such artists as Stuart Davis, Wassily Kandinsky, Leon Polk Smith, Willem de Kooning and Edgar Degas.

Last spring's "Paper Trail" show was curated by New York artist Margaret Evangeline, who creates art works from nontraditional materials such as gunshot stainless steel.

The shows close July 27.