Miguel Calderon: Andrea Rosen Gallery.

Who can blame Mexico City's artists for making a habit of investigating their home town in their work? At twenty million people and counting, theirs--as many an exhibition press release has stated--is a megalopolis of extremes, characterized by vast disparities in wealth, the aftereffects of colonialism, and changes wrought by NAFTA.

In Miguel Calderon's "Forcing the Force of Nature," the hometown connection was less striking than in his earlier work, but it's visible nonetheless. Calderon's "Chapultepec" photo series (all works 2003) features picnickers in the ...