Image Conscious (3)

Seth Rosenberg's The Annunciation feels overwhelming at first, but the more you dissect the layers and patterns, the more you understand the world as he saw it. An image of a friend's son swimming appears above silhouettes of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. Fighter planes, captured in a photograph the artist once took from the window of his studio, soar across the canvas. For Rosenberg, who died last year, art meant creating complex visual scrapbooks of both personal memories and media images. "You have to look for clues," says Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland senior curator Margo Ann Crutchfield. "It's almost like a puzzle that takes time to decipher." Check out Seth Rosenberg: The Cleveland Years at MOCA beginning Sept. 10. 8501 Carnegie Ave., Cleveland, 216-421-8671, mocacleveland.org