At Arlington Arts Center, where is the passion?

Such "Three Faces of Eve" conceptualism isn't easy to present in the gallery. But somehow the gravity -- and wackiness -- of her project doesn't convey here, where two vaguely sciencey-looking lab tables host various drawings of her patents (she's registering headgear that allows users to see different things with each eye) and small monitors of doubled video images.

"Transhuman Conditions" is exactly the kind of exhibition Arlington should be mounting -- it boasts interesting artists, many from out of town, and a subject matter with lots of promise. But a show like this needs to work harder to make a radical claim. Pico, where are you when we need you?

Fortunato Depero

It's back to the future at the Italian Embassy, where a 100-year-old movement feels very much alive. Here, work by Italian futurist Fortunato Depero gives new insight into the sometimes impenetrable early-20th-century agitators whose aggressive nationalism embraced an efficient, machine-age future (and foreshadowed the rise of fascism).

Many of Depero's drawings and collages on paper and board on view here originated as advertising images or magazine covers; most date from the late 1920s and 1930s. His is a mass-market version of futurism: pared-down images with graphic punch, the kind of work that would influence so much graphic design to come.

There's a curious mix of efficiency and charm to some of Depero's pictures. Take the artist's advertisement for a pencil manufacturer, which imagines a man made from graphite. His face is a mask of geometric form, yet he's got the awkward charm of a Tin Man. He is man as the sum of his tools, a model of efficacy -- yet somehow impotent, too, in all his geometric regularity. When man becomes machine, he's not always the better for it.

Dawson is a freelance writer.

Transhuman Conditions

at Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd.,

to April 3. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday. 703-248-6800. www.arlingtonartscenter.org.

Fortunato Depero

at the Embassy of Italy, 3000 Whitehaven St. NW, to March 12. By appointment, 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4 p.m. weekdays; e-mail name, requested date and time of visit to iicwashington@esteri.it. www.iicwashington.esteri.it/iic_washington.