An untitled photograph by Robert Schulman is part of four exhibitions opening Saturday in CEPA Gallery.

Many of the area’s larger museums and galleries prefer to rotate their exhibitions periodically and with minimal fanfare, allowing exhibitions to overlap and bleed seamlessly from one to the next. Not CEPA Gallery. The storied downtown art space (627 Main St.) prefers to change things over all at once in an attempt to squeeze maximum interest out of each radical retooling of its exhibitions. This mega-opening approach is also a good excuse to throw a party, which explains why CEPA’s opening-night affairs are the stuff of local art-world envy.

On Saturday, the gallery will open four exhibitions in its various spaces in the Market Arcade building. Its annual members’ exhibition, juried by past CEPA honchos Robert Hirsch and Gary Nickard, will occupy the gallery’s basement space. In the ground-floor FLUX Gallery, photographer Mark McLoughlin demonstrates his throwback pinhole photography techniques. On the third floor, socially conscious photographer Bradley Phillips exhibits stark illustrations of our “disposable society.” And on the second floor, Robert Schulman’s “Dumpsters and Other Strangers II” takes a look at the region’s “vintage architectural and industrial landscape.”

The party gets under way at 7 p. m. Saturday. Admission is free. For more information, call 856-2717 or visit www.cepagallery.org.

—Colin Dabkowski