ART REVIEW : A STUNNING AESTHETIC EVENT

If there were only the Robert Rauschenbergs in the art collection acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art from Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, we would have just cause for rejoicing. The museum would have gained an invaluable cache of 11 works by one of America’s most important artists from his best and most affecting period, the mid ‘50s and early ‘60s.

The Panza collection of 80 Abstract Expressionist and Pop-era paintings and sculptures--which was unveiled to museum members at the Temporary Contemporary over the weekend and will open to the public on Wednesday--embraces a batch of Rauschenberg’s “combine paintings” that merge such improbable things as bird wings, neckties, bed springs, Coca-Cola bottles, drapery, photographs and dripping paint in large constructions of nearly palpable poignancy.

Rauschenberg’s later work has become larger, more elegant and refined, and often slicker, but it has never been more moving. When he hangs a brick in front of a tacky tropical landscape painting, cages a stuffed chicken below a pair of men’s white shoes or boxes a long-legged water bird with a gun painted orange, he sets off reverberating memories that are difficult to explain because they constantly reassemble themselves in changing relationships.

Rauschenberg has always functioned, in part, as a collector of visual information, gathering art materials from the grubby streets of New York and far-flung travels. He has the curiosity of the quintessential “good reporter” but none of the objectivity. As he lays out his choices in rather tattered-looking but powerfully well-composed constructions, he lets us know that each piece of refuse, every reminder of the past and emblem of contemporary society was chosen from a depth of feeling. His reasons for rescuing, transforming and juxtaposing these objects may not coincide with our interpretations of them, but there’s no question that a gentle artist possessed of a garrulous disposition set forth this art for other real people to consider.

If there were only the George Segals in the Panza collection, the Southland would be considerably richer for the addition of two plaster sculptures from the ‘60s by one of America’s most durable social commentators. “Sunbathers on Rooftop” places a life-size couple face down on a flat roof, near a green-rimmed skylight, and captures the enervating force of a hot afternoon in the city. “Man in the Armchair” wraps fatigue, age, despair and resilience into the slump of an anonymous figure who is as familiar as your favorite uncle and as distant as your taciturn neighbor.

If there were only the Franz Klines, Los Angeles suddenly would have become a prime place to immerse oneself in the heroic calligraphy of his slashing black and white paintings. Eleven of them, plus a small one in color, expand upon each other and reveal the full weight of his vocabulary. One painting can’t do what a dozen can, and Kline has never looked more eloquent. He uses physically charged brush strokes as architectural pillars, pathways to agonizing entanglement and expressions of energy. While restricting himself formally, he unleashes a torrent of explosive forces.

If there were only the Mark Rothkos, we would be intensely proud of having at last acquired a meditative chamber richly stocked with his evocative clouds of color. Now installed in a large room of their own at the Temporary Contemporary, seven paintings from 1954 to 1960 constitute a genuinely thrilling experience.

If there were only the Claes Oldenburgs, the museum would have become a notable home of an early version of the wry Pop master’s exaggerated visions of ordinary objects. Instead of his celebrated outdoor sculpture or even his soft, stuffed re-creations of electrical appliances, we find 16 less familiar works of lumpy, painted plaster--mostly made for a 1961 storefront installation. The form is far more painterly than what is usual for him, but the content is vintage Oldenburg.

He has bestowed ironic monumental status on such mundane stuff as tennis shoes, green stockings, women’s panties, cigarette butts and a hamburger. A 5-foot white “Bride” on a bulky pedestal is a ruffly fright with a skull-like head and dark caverns for eyes. While she pokes fun at the trappings of a hallowed institution and offends romantics, the rest of the pieces are comparatively friendly reminders of American consumerism.

If there were only the James Rosenquists, the Panza collection would be a historically significant gathering of early works by a billboard-painter-turned-fine-artist. Rosenquist’s paintings weren’t as lush and seductively colorful in the early ‘60s as they are now, but this work from his formative Pop years reveals an inquiring mind that questioned everything from the construction of paintings and illusionistic devices to the insidious meanings of commercially reproduced images.

If there were only the Roy Lichtensteins, we would be treated to four seminal images--of Cezanne, a desk calendar, a thick steak and a fist--worked out in red and black dots and fat lines on white canvases. These rugged, early (1962) pieces lack the fluid grace of Lichtenstein’s current work but more than make up for it with the earnest strength of a young artist wrestling with the challenge of turning commercial art methods into an aesthetic statement.

If there were only the Antoni Tapies, we would have been given an unusual opportunity to get to know the work of a major Spanish artist who reacted to the devastation of the Second World War in paintings. Sixteen canvases define vast expanses of space and spiritual abysses in terms of gritty surfaces, rough edges, gouges and pock marks.

If there were only the Jean Fautriers, we might overlook his six small paintings--and thus deprive ourselves of an intimate experience with the French artist’s “Hostages” and “Naked Torsos’ series. His heavily impastoed paintings are a touching mix of ethereal grace and rugged substance.

Like Tapies’, Fautrier’s art was shaped by being European at a time of extreme tragedy. Their work--heavy with suggestions of foreboding and mourning--contrasts sharply with the effusive energy and more regenerative soul-searching of American artists in the same period.

Any one of these bodies of work would be a welcome addition to the artistic wealth of a city that started collecting too late to compete with older bastions of culture. That all nine were bought by the fledgling museum seems too good to be true. The acquisition endowed the Museum of Contemporary Art with instant credibility and a base for future collections. The only problem with such a fabulous acquisition is that it incites greed: Where are the Pollocks, the De Koonings, the Johns? And what about truly contemporary work, now that history has gained a substantial footing?

Tough questions remain for the museum, not least of them involving a policy for collecting, resources to implement it and space to show both permanent holdings and changing exhibitions. For the moment, the Panza collection focuses attention on the museum’s positive accomplishments and on the vision and commitment of an unusual collector.

The most stunning aspect of Panza’s in-depth approach is how sensible it seems, once seen. Buying without the benefit of hindsight, he chose artists who seemed most important and settled on periods he thought most trenchant. Accustomed as we are to historical overviews composed of representative examples--and to fussing when the surveys are incomplete--we are shocked to find that this seemingly sporadic and highly individual approach is more satisfying as an aesthetic experience. If we don’t learn all there is to know about an artist’s evolution, we assimilate the period at hand without the usual distractions or concern for accounting procedures.

The experience currently offered at the museum is rather like entering the light-space environments of contemporary artists, also collected by Panza. “My goal was to have enough work of each artist to make an environment,” he has said in a catalogue interview. In the installation he designed for his collection, he has shared the fruits of that goal and allowed us to concentrate on its meaning.

The exhibition, through Sept. 29, shares the Temporary Contemporary’s sprawling space with two large shows of works by Los Angeles artists, Mark Lere and Allen Ruppersberg (to be reviewed later).