The video "Pluck," part of a solo exhibition of the same title by Andrew Johnson at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Galleries, is both direct and cryptic, disturbingly creepy and utterly mesmerizing.

A lone lifeless body, wrapped in colorful patterned material suggestive of Southeast Asia, occupies a large portion of the projected horizontal frame. There is a moment of leaden stillness, and then a spectral arm reaches from the top of the scene to pick something from the corpse.

A half dozen such tableaux are presented in as many minutes, each introduced by a billowing cloth that curtains the view, gradually drifting off to reveal another slumped figure, its covering and location (grassy knoll, amid rocks) differing from those of the previous one. The descendant arm at times moves probingly, like an elephant's trunk searching for food; at others it dashes frenetically, emphasizing the vulnerability of the untended body.

The item snatched each time appears to be a flower, perhaps a dried leaf. But, as with most of Johnson's work, the physical object is symbolic, the questions raised reaching beyond the temporal.

Are the arms, and whatever they're attached to, integral to the process of death, conveyers of a harvested spirit or soul into an afterlife? Or are they opportunists, gleaning from the dead for their own survival; or, darker, representative of profiteers who gain from the sacrifice of others? Honor or predation? Ritual or desecration?

One's mind wanders to funeral home visits, even to Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook's "Reading Inaow for Female Corpse" exhibited in the 2004-05 Carnegie International.

Johnson offers some clue, writing "fingers untouchable snatch offerings of appeasement and remembrance, leaving any aspiration unrequited."

Something is askew, but we needn't know exactly what to engage with this arresting work that's grounded in our most sobering passage.

There is an experimental aspect to this piece, as with the photography in the exhibition, in that Johnson seems to be working through larger and broader ideas, both formal and political. For example, the figure in one segment shivers, breaking pattern; another is carried on the back of a water buffalo. One scene glows ultraviolet and has oversized foreground flowers reminiscent of portions of Paul Chan's International 2004-05 animation, itself inspired by the drawings of the late outsider artist Henry Darger.

The 19 digital collages of "And Gazelles? And Gazelles" offer a taste of where Johnson is coming from, helped along by wall text, which explains that the title references a 1970 My Lai massacre poster created by the Art Worker Coalition, and that the word gazelle -- which appears in sources as varied as the Old Testament, medieval Hebraic mysticism and Islamic philosophy -- has become a term for attack helicopters. Subjects aligned in the 20 digital images of "Fold" include, among others, religion, racism, exoticism, Richard the Lionheart's sword and violence.

If it sounds like a lot to pull together, it is, and from one viewpoint the series don't click, although isolated images do stand out. A gazelle suckling her young as a line of helicopters hovers overhead or a downed copter near a disemboweled gazelle are juxtapositions that speak for themselves. But a gazelle and helicopter nose-to-nose is too cute. In "Fold," diptychs, such as that pairing a decapitated head and a historic military helmet, invite consideration of the concerns that inspired them -- but the parts are diffuse, and one yearns for a striking whole.

As critique, the series have more to say. Johnson speaks of responding to the "consequences of crisis in the Middle East, crisis in photography and crisis in representation." Civility, art-making, the notion of reality itself, are up for grabs.

Johnson's fourth piece, "Tacit," is a short silent video comprising squatting blindfolded men, a strumming harpist and sensuous, shifting trailings of white smoke. The strings of the harp foreground the screen like bars, and the musician's hand -- all that we see of her -- could be a prisoner's gripping his enclosure.

Again, a disembodied hand plucks. We neither hear the music nor smell the smoke. The men see nothing.

And no one speaks.

"Pluck" continues through March 2 at 477 Melwood Ave., North Oakland. Admission is free. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 412-681-5449 or www.pghfilmmakers.org.

"The Pittsburgh Group: Celebrating Women in the Arts for Over 30 Years" is a pleasant and comfortable show that includes some of the region's most well-known artists and inaugurates the city's newest exhibition space, Fein Art Gallery.

Gallery co-owners Bruce Klein and Stuart Epstein opened in April at 519 E. Ohio St. on the North Side, a few doors down from Photo Antiquities Museum. Aside from exhibitions, they offer framing and art consulting services.

"Celebrating" comprises work by Pittsburgh Group members, who meet regularly to offer one another critical input, support and networking information. Most of the exhibitors have been a part of the group for three decades.

Exhibiting are Kathleen Zimbicki, who also curated, Miriam Bates Bisdee, Wilma Cirbus, Dorothy Forman, Adrienne Heinrich, Donna Hollen Bolmgren, Lorraine Levy, Judith Musser, Ellen Neuberg, JoAnn Pratt, Aline Shader, Lucienne Wald, Jill Whittaker and Susan Winicour.

For information: 412-321-6816 or www.feinartgallery.com.