The “DCG Open” at the David Castillo Gallery is a summer group show that aims to illuminate works from Miami area artists who are not represented in galleries and may be off the radar screen of the exhibition circuit. It’s a great idea and a community builder, as long as the shows themselves don’t get too jumbled as too many group shows these days can. This year’s “DCG Open” escapes that pitfall, with an easily ingestible, diverse compilation of works that don’t have to fight with each other.

Curators Melissa Diaz, the assistant director of the gallery, and Jane Hart, curator of exhibitions at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, invited 28 artists to exhibit their work, which includes drawing, painting, collage, photography, video and sculpture. Some of the names will be familiar, others not, another good combination.

Hopefully you will avoid tripping onto the floor sculpture from Michael Balbone, forcing you to study it. Sewn together from brown plastic grocery bags (is there any more unattractive color and texture?), it’s a giant, flaccid $ symbol, almost too close for comfort after the latest debt and dollar debacles.

Also on the floor is a two-channel video installation, which includes a large stick, from Autumn Casey. On screen, a woman holding the stick or branch periodically blurts out, “Look what I found!” (also the title of the piece). As you move through the gallery, the exclamation follows you around.

The loveliest piece is a graphite on paper on the back wall called “Carmen,” which looks like a bust of hats in black, white and with a red-flowered flourish. It’s from Hugo Moro, who rarely disappoints in terms of composition, style and contemplation. He currently has work, of a pair of men’s formal shoes, in the 60th Annual All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. His piece is one of the most remarkable works out of more than 100 in the show, which speaks volumes.

On the same wall as Moro is a hanging sculpture, from Johnny Laderer, made from “found objects, plywood and epiphytes,” a nice collision of materials. On the adjacent wall, all the works are worth checking out in some detail. One is the monotone sculpture, a tree with leaves of hanging slingshots, from Johnny Robles; another is the imagery-dense collage from Daniel Gorostiaga. And Carlos Rigau, whose videos should be familiar by now, has a comically dark 2-minute video which involves a guy in a creepy black mask pushing around some dolls in black face and a black-clad rocker smoking and jamming. Raul Perdomo has a watercolor that, as usual, is a thing of beauty; and Ivan Toth Depena contributed three drawings and laser etchings (he will be unveiling a huge public art project at the downtown Government Center in September).

These are just some of the elements in this mix, which does seem to suggest that shows like this are just scratching the surface in terms of the scope and depth of what is out there, still partially hidden, in South Florida.

“DCG Open” runs through Aug. 6 at the David Castillo Gallery, 2234 N.W. Second Ave., Miami; www.davidcastillogallery.com.