WILSHIRE CENTER

German photographer Helmut Newton is up to his old tricks in a routine show of black-and-white prints. He is still the dubious master of stylishly sleazy international erotica combining French chic with Teutonic kink. Subjects run through David Bowie, Nastassja Kinski, Charlotte Rampling, Verushka and such-like celebrities to a brace of nude fashion models of such unworldly beauty that nothing that happens in the pictures seems quite real.

This quality of fantasy is probably Newton’s saving grace. If we really believed those people dining in Baroque elegance were as decadent as they look, they would be repulsive. If Newton did not finally appear to be kidding when he chains a lady to a bed or puts a saddle on a model wearing jodhpurs and boots, it would be impossible to look at the stuff in good conscience.

As it stands, it’s all a little soporific. That might be because much of the work in the series “Private Property” is literally familiar from books and previous exhibitions. About the only newish move here is sets of pictures consisting of blown-up proof sheets. They yield 36 variations of Bowie’s profile, a nude lady smoking in bed or a topless model with leather accouterments trussed up like a Christmas turkey flexing her biceps. The device guarantees a certain amount of suggested cinematic movement along with a feeling that it’s a way of recycling secondary efforts without making decisions. Helmut’s Greatest Outtakes.

Finally, however, drowsiness proceeds from a sense that the whole business has grown somehow old hat. Sex is undoubtedly here to stay but the brand advertised has become either something to fly into a snit about or chuckle over as a quaint relic of the past. Besides, he really has to be kidding. Those women look so independent and healthy that if a fellow tried to handcuff them to a bed they’d probably beat him up. (G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, 7224 Melrose Ave., to Feb. 23.)