This month at Marginal Utility, Eric McDade displays the dregs of art, professionalism and effort with a result that is both absurd and challenging. The show’s lackluster sign — a piece of 8-and-a-half -inch by  11-inch printer paper — states the name of the artist and show in no-larger-than-14-point font. “Nobody Digs Your Music but Yourself” the paper reads.

If it weren’t for the fact that the title is the least noticeable part of the exhibit, the viewer would feel immediately violated by McDade’s half-hearted assault. Instead, the large-scale photos confront patrons first, and the artist’s information becomes a barely noticeable afterthought. The description on Marginal Utility’s website announces McDade’s “gimmick this time” as photography and ends with the suggestion that you “Bring something to read.”

Clearly, this show is an artistic ruse itself in both description and presentation. If dry humor and self-deprecation aren’t your shtick, it would be best to stick to modernism and forgo McDade altogether. If you can take the punishment though, there are some unapologetically quirky images to take in.

The photos, which are all roughly 3-feet in size, are primarily portraits. McDade arranges his models in situational poses which sit on the fence between goofy and suggestive — suggestive of what, however, is a different beast altogether.

Something that can be said is that most of the photos seem critical of bureaucracy or business. One photo pictures a man asleep at an old school, manual typewriter. Next to him sits a gigantic stack of papers, and around him hover toy birds and microphones. Despite wearing headphones and being surrounded by both work and distractions, he does not appear to be waking up anytime soon …

Elsewhere, a professional-looking dentist peers into the clamped-open mouth of a patient. He seems not only unsurprised but clinical in his assessment of a bird’s nest (eggs and all) sitting on the man’s tongue, as if this were a regular ailment.

In perhaps the most amusing piece, a group of filthy coal miners in helmets stand around another medical doctor, anxiously awaiting his prognosis — of a tiny yellow canary. The implication that the canary is already dead resonates with tense social times the world over, and yet, the distressed doctor and grieving coal miners add just the necessary dose of wry humor.

Whether McDade’s show is socially geared or simply a gigantic jest is wide open for debate. You may very well want to bring something to read, if that thing is either the “New York Times” or “The Far Side” comics. My guess is McDade wouldn’t much care either way.

Marginal Utility is located on the second floor at 319 N. 11th St., Second floor; http://www.marginalutility.org/contact/