“CANCER SUCKS!” reads a button perched beside San Francisco Giants memorabilia, family photographs, and various other tchotchkes. This niche is one of thousands of memorials, each containing cremated human remains, on the second floor of …

Hammers and bells, sometimes invisible or inaudible, are at the crux of Zarouhie Abdalian’s exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum. In a work titled “As a demonstration,” a small hammer strikes a bronze-colored bell. The …