"Actions, Conversations, and Intersections" is a mind-boggling array of participatory projects at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (MAG). It includes dozens of artists or groups of artists calling themselves councils, banks, collectives, schools, ensembles or foundations.

Organized by MAG staff members Edith Abeyta and Michael Lewis Miller, the show's core is a dozen or so installations by individuals or groups including: a café serving cake and coffee; a balcony with lots of California natives (plants and someone to tell you about them); a room showing multiple videos of actions conducted out in the public realm; and a central area for a new project, happening or installation every week. This area is "The Action Space" and it really is where the action is: There have been Flamenco Palmas (participatory hand-clapping), bicycles wired and amped to play as instruments, multiple knitting circles (including one adding to a very long potholder from divorced socks — with Laurel Paley) and an Anarchist Book Fair. I heard one person exclaim: "Is this an art show or what?!!!"

"Participatory" is the key word here, and it appears to have several meanings. Artist Michael Arata pops up almost everywhere as the exhibition's resident jester (even on paper towels in the gallery's restroom — viewers must touch the art to dry their hands). Dara Brady's Drawing Board invites people to pull strings (ropes, actually) in one room to reveal unseen consequences in another.

Some artists interact with other artists. In Belongings, Betsy Lohrer Hall asks others to use muslin, a mirror and paper book to make an artwork around the idea of belonging and/or belongings. Several artists interact with visitors, as in Homesite's Clothing Exchange.  Charlene Roth exchanges Hollyhock House commemorative plates for whatever object the viewer deems to be of equivalent value. The resulting display suggests the significance of remembering Mr. Wright's contributions and includes a hat, brush, pen, a bottle of pills, a shelf-sized sculpture, a key, a tea bag (not political) and a number of other fairly modest but very personal items.

Other artists collaborate with their subjects to reveal their lives. In Juvies, Ara Oshagon uses photos and texts to relate the regrettable events that lead Mayra and Efrain to incarceration. Suzanne Lacy and the Otis MFA Public Practice Program present "Laton Market," a collaboration between artists and this small Central California town's residents.

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