Hammer Films, 2009; acrylic on canvas; 16 x 12 in.

When classic campy entertainment is rendered in paint, the remediation restores some of the earnestness to the original enterprise. Thus, Captain Kirk is once again an empathetic hero--casting off the pop cultural taint of William Shatner's long career--in the canvasses on display in Luke Butler's exhibition "Captain!" at Silverman Gallery. The compositions, lifted from still frames from Star Trek episodes, seek to invest the sci-fi drama with the iconic power of a pictorial tableau.

Lurking across the gallery are collages of vintage gay erotica spliced with the heads of mid-century American political leaders such as Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford. The leaders freshly toned and highly endowed bodies are charming, frolicking in natural landscapes and swimming with seals. The collages are illusionist, flirting with photographic compositions in the manner of John Heartfield's pamphlet covers. Where Heartfield focused his critique on the politics of Weimar Germany, Butler dives into the cultural dissonances stirring in the United States period of high modernism, before the counterculture overflowed into mainstream American life. These fetishized depictions of Captain Kirk and Lyndon Johnson critique the construction of masculinity and power. Unfortunately, the insights into gender politics gleaned from the work seem almost as historical as their source materials.

The highlights of the exhibition are paintings of title sequences from B-movies. The formalities of the title graphics, complete with production credits, expose the industrial methods of production that produced such lowbrow delights. For a moment, films that have been relegated to the camp of the past become new contemporary ideas.

Luke Butler: "Captain!" is on view at Silverman Gallery in San Francisco through October 17, 2009.