Within 15 minutes of entering the modern-art wing of any museum in America, viewers will most likely hear someone say, "I could have done that."

This is never meant as a compliment. Many gallery visitors expect artists to do what "normal" people couldn't, wouldn't, and (if one leans toward a certain type of taste) shouldn't do. Excellent artists comply by exhibiting extraordinary ability in something approximating creation. Those who are more than excellent find ways to live up to viewers' expectations while simultaneously pointing out the unreasonableness of those demands.

On view through April 13 is the University of Hawai'i-Manoa Art Gallery's 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, a touring collection of small-scale, three-dimensional artwork made in every conceivable medium by artists from all over the world.

The triennial show offers museum and gallery visitors a rare opportunity to examine what it is they value when they look at sculpture.

As there are almost 100 works to gaze upon, all but the most (and least) discriminating viewers will find something to fall in love with, something to laugh at, something to dismiss, and something from which to draw inspiration.

"Back in 1982, our sculpture professors wanted to see more sculpture in Honolulu by international artists," says UH Art Gallery director Tom Klobe. "Of course, sculpture is usually large and expensive to ship. We weren't sure how to get the work to Hawai'i."

As creative people often do, Klobe and his colleagues viewed their problem as a chance to develop something new.

"We decided to focus on small-scale work, and came up with the idea that each piece should fit into the confines of a shoebox," explains Klobe.

Though it was always intended as an international exhibition, much of the work in the first three shows featured mostly artists from the United States. Klobe points out that in this ninth incarnation of the Shoebox Exhibition, more than half of the artists either live or were born outside the United States.

The show's frenetic vitality attests to the fact that artists approach the task of making sculpture with so many distinct intentions.

Some of the sculptors strive for ornate beauty, others for simplicity, whimsy or political engagement. Viewers can hardly walk through the gallery — at once cluttered and spacious — without examining what it is they look for when they look for art that moves them.

Artists such as Johannette Rowley of Honolulu use the small-scale parameters to display imaginative mastery of technique.

In "Blue Uhu Tea," Rowley covers her purple earthenware teapot with the feathery skin of an actual fish. Simultaneously familiar and otherworldly, Rowley's craft satisfies the viewer's desire to see something recognizable and difficult to render. "Blue Uhu Tea" transcends the merely technical by raising obvious questions about utility and purpose. Why did the artist fashion what appear to be bird wings out of fish scales? Why make a teapot that is impossible to use?

What is beauty if it makes a thing useless? Several artists address this question by fabricating ornate, mechanical work that apparently does nothing but sit and raise eyebrows.

Honolulu's Fred Roster bolts stainless steel to wood, then shapes bronze figures, shards of rock and metal discs into something that seems like it should make something go.

St. Louis artist Joe Chesla offers "Jawn'r," a block of shaped wood affixed to heavy steel knobs. Viewers will want to unscrew the bolts and touch these artists' creations, but of course they cannot.

They can only look at these things that suggest utility, and then viewers can begin thinking about similarities and differences between the decorative, the useful and the artistic.

The works are displayed on a series of shelves that jut out from crisscrossing walls and partitions painted in muted pastel colors. It's difficult to look at one sculpture without being aware, and looking ahead to, at least three or four others. This encourages comparison, which may be why several viewers whisper "Which one is your favorite?" to one another as they wander around the room.

There is a lot to look at in the Shoebox Exhibition — gallery visitors are likely to be afflicted by a certain amount of fatigue. Perhaps this is why some of the most pleasing work aims for a sublime kind of simplicity.

Kazuo Kadonaga from Japan slices and reconstructs a block of untreated wood. Maya Lea Portner from Honolulu places delicate skins of waxy paper on vertical, towering pins. Egil Martin Kurdol from Lillehammer, Norway, asks viewers to stare into a shiny box full of buckles, buttons and scraps of life. Looking at these works is calming and provocative, like gazing into natural pools of reflecting water.

Some of the sculpture is displayed next to statements written by the artists. Is it too much of an unfair generalization to say that those who make art can't write about what they make? None of the descriptions in this show say anything as illuminating or interesting as the art itself. Avoid statements like "I enjoy creating objects of contemplation for myself and the viewer" unless you want to wallow in the vague and the obvious.

Art expresses what words cannot. Visitors who read the descriptions might find themselves saying "I could have done that." These small sculptural works need no accompanying explanation; they speak volumes on their own.

Timothy Dyke is a writer who teaches at Punahou School.