It's tempting to think the Memorial Art Gallery's biennial "Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition" is something it's not. Though one might anticipate seeing the best works by the region's most talented artists, this is an impression the MAG seems eager to dispel. "‘Finger Lakes' does not attempt to be a comprehensive survey, even of what's happening in the Finger Lakes region," says Marie Via, the gallery's director of exhibitions. "It represents the jurors' selection of objects that resonate with them ... the jurors are different for each exhibition, every ‘Finger Lakes' has its own personality." No, instead of being the best, or the freshest, or anything concrete or predictable, the "Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition" is a hodgepodge; a one-off collaboration of artists and jurors.

Mark Alice Durant and Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy were drafted to adjudicate this year's "Finger Lakes," and in doing so provide their own statement explaining the selections. "Like a pair of polite Dr. Frankensteins, we asked ourselves how then to make a ‘body' out of so many disparate and varied parts? ... We hope that we have provided a visual experience that teases out unforeseen relationships in previously unrelated works." While several attempts at relationships both formal and conceptual are made, regrettably the conversations of this year's "Finger Lakes" rarely get past the fumbling beginnings of a blind date and feel stilted, uneven, and unnatural.

Karen Jones Zarzecki's "Chrysalis" and "The Balance of Grace" imply fleshy, knotted intestines hewn from pink alabaster and polished so finely as to look almost wet. A few feet across the gallery, Max Lenderman's bead and crochet "Ice Crystals" present a form reminiscent of a saggy, soggy ribcage. It's a strained juxtaposition of stone innards and soft bone that fails to satisfy the eye or the mind. Susan Lakin's photographic portraits show cheery folks reflected in the screens of television sets. As a critique of a TV-driven culture, the work is tepid at best, a visual gimmick at worst. A wobbly line can be drawn from Lakin's work to the photographs of Frank Petronio, particularly the image "Gamer." In it, an overweight, scruffy young man seems content to continue his game's virtual adventure despite the presence of a scantily clad woman leaning on his chair - just the sort of thing that should wrest the gamer's gaze from his monitor. Perhaps Petronio's image isn't intended as a comment on our infatuation with video screens, but without that shred of meaning this image becomes a silly, even mean joke that at best will muster a juvenile snort.

Flush with pictures, this "Finger Lakes" is nearly 50 percent photography. Unfortunately, in art as in life, more does not necessarily mean better. Edgar Praus' large, black-and-white images detailing hand-painted signs in the Midwest are technically stunning but do little to push Walker Evans's long-yellowed envelope. Similarly, James M. Via's photos of ancient stone monuments in France are well executed but do little to exalt these mysterious landscapes. Harry Littell's celebrations of natural form and Alan Farkas' oddly out-of-focus "Surf Shack" help rescue the show's photographs from complete dullness, but to look upon these selections is to see a "Finger Lakes" region - a wellspring in the advancement of American photography - that halted its creative image-making evolution decades ago.

Despite an overall unevenness, this year's "Finger Lakes" is not without individual triumphs. Michael Beitz's sculpture "Crossing" features hundreds of terra cotta feet, shrinking in size and arranged tightly in concentric circles. It's the visual equivalent of a bathtub whose drain plug has been pulled, a vortex of movement achieved through the skillful placement of static objects. Joy Powell's small sculpture "Real World" provides a stark rumination on media addiction. Within a tiny, minimalist living space a Monopoly-piece-sized chair sits facing a television atop a bureau. Behind the chair, a small silver window is cut through the canvas wall, looking out to a world that anyone in the chair would never see. Joseph A. Whalen's small but powerful watercolor "The Underpass" is easily overlooked but unforgettable. An elderly woman walks along a roadway, approaching a highway overpass while pulling a wire grocery cart. She is completely alone in the frame, save for two tiny black birds, indifferent to her presence. The feeling is of emptiness and unease at our inevitable passage into death's unknown.

Given that the "Finger Lakes" exhibition is the result of the subjective tastes of the jurors makes the show a conundrum for the viewer. Whether the exhibition "works" or not relies largely on the jurors' efforts, but no one goes to a museum to see that; they go to see the art. It's easier to dislike this sort of show if the jurors choose consistently exciting works that don't quite sing in the same voice. Unfortunately, this "Finger Lakes" may leave the viewer doubly puzzled, as to the quality of some works, and the decision to include them.

"2007 Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition" | Through September 2 | Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Avenue | Museum hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday until 9 p.m. | Admission $3-$7 | 473-7720, mag.rochester.edu.