Watch out! Don’t tread on the dead rats; they’re part of the show. “Macrosolutions to Megaproblems” is a small but captivating assortment of quirky pieces by Sam Davis and Josh Mannis at M+B. At first, you might be so distracted by Mannis’ attention-grabbing paintings as not to notice Davis’ Good Rats (all works 2018), three tiny rodent sculptures unassumingly lying on the floor, their grossly elongated pink tails absurdly strung to the ceiling like jury-rigged electrical cables. The cordlike caudal appendages of Davis’ urethane rodents echo strings and cords in Mannis’ paintings, Love, Devotion, Surrender and The Key (pictured above). In The Key, three half-doctor, half-soldier hybrids bunglingly trip over one another while stitching together the torso of a weird, stringy-maned humanoid whose face is obscured by wavy-lined sky; one of the camouflage-clad physicians is apparently not finding whatever key he is after as he frantically searches the Internet. Equally improbable, Davis’ creepy Hell Class Mobile Cathedral is an unappetizingly green, plucked-turkey-like form on wheels, punctuated with unlikely little chambers appointed with dollhouse furniture. Where is this vehicle going? Perhaps nowhere. Mannis and Davis titled their show after an eponymous Voivod song whose pessimistic 1988 lyrics seem strikingly modern. Like the song, their whimsically grisly work is infused with sardonic hints of futility. Sometimes there is no solution but to laugh resistantly in the face of an absurd problem.

M+B
612 N. Almont Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Show runs through Aug. 25