Chekov II, 2009; acrylic on canvas; 16 x 19 in. Courtesy of Silverman Gallery, San Francisco.

Luke Butler's exhibition at Silverman Gallery is as exclamatory as its title. A composite of his Enterprise (2008-09) and Leaders of Men (2009) series, Butler's "Captain!" explores the tropes of TV and media representations of masculinity. Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" drew on the poetic device of the heroic couplet to memorialize President Lincoln and perhaps accustom the American imagination to a more erotic power relationship. Similarly, Butler's paintings and collages are profoundly accessible even while they awaken a provocative empathy. Still frames from Star Trek and Starsky & Hutch from the Enterprise series are culled for moments of anguish, terror, or vulnerability. Butler painted a particularly poignant scene of Spock cradling the head of Captain Kirk, isolating the couple on a muted gray background that calls to mind the galactic Wild West of the USS Enterprise or the middle gray of the television screen.

The sexual thrust of these paintings are accentuated in the Leaders of Men collages, where the contemplative heads of American Cold War presidents are cropped to bodies found in retro gay pornography--think of a scantily clad Richard Nixon, prepping for a shave. Butler succeeds in revealing the sensitive underpinnings of some of our most testosterone-fueled narratives. He may have titled the exhibition as homage to the yelps of the crew, the bisexuality of Walt Whitman, or a pointed political accusation, but Captain! embraces all of these interpretations with straightforward dexterity.

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