Of all the annuals and biennials staged over the years at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the current one-the fourth biennial-is the runt of the lot. It is not only a small show but somehow a dismal one, and hardly retrieved from its chilling lack of character and compelling ideas by the few quality pieces.

The three-man jury pared to the bone the 1,160 entries, coming up with only 42 winners in painting, sculpture, photography and graphics.

A jury, of course, has free rein to select as few or as many entries as it wants, and is under no obligation to present a cross-section of the community's art expression. It doesn't grade "on the curve,” as in the classroom.

But any concept of judging carried to an extreme is likely to get ridiculous, and here we have not only no cross-section of Minnesota’s teeming and diversified art expression but a sparse and really dull exhibition. The elimination process was so drastic as to go over the line, seemingly, into the negative. Our artists’ community is not as sad-sack and sterile as the show would indicate.

On the positive side we find some interesting efforts. Edward Evans has used what could be called an '“op” art approach in his alignment in black, white and gray fo small squares and oblongs, giving the effect of buildings and windows receding and approaching, with pulsating depth, the spectator’s viewpoint.

Hollis MacDonald’s “Another Soul Goes Under” reveals an imaginative individualist with his own means and forms of evoking feeling — a block shape with heart opening against distant wavelike horizontals, a look-through painting of haunting character. David Oxtoby’s large “Dave of America, After the 7th Seal” is visionary and apocalyptic in its surrealist juxtapositions.

The Fauve-ish “Still Life with Oranges” of Brian Alexander, with its flicking spots of canvas white, catches and holds the eye. Jerry Rudquist, whose “Ark was not in the competition but is part of the show, creates a powerful and cryptic organism, with fine painting quality. Brad Davis is a fine craftsman but I find myself unmoved and lacking any kind of reaction when viewing straightedge magnifications of simple sign-like figures. It seems to me that Evans and George Runge (“Twice Five”) with their touch of movement and fancy, produce more eye response in this kind of thing by getting away from rigid and static symmetry.