LA CIENEGA AREA

A vigorous group show called “City Art: Nine Artists From New York” presents a swath of urban works, intended as an update of the “Times Square Show.” That may not mean much to Californians who didn’t see the celebrated public event, but any excuse to present interesting art is OK with me. This exhibition is worth seeing for Judy Rifka’s “Wall of Nudes” alone. As if hacking reliefs in great slabs of stone, she has painted pairs of pink female nudes on canvases that appear to have been stretched over jagged cliffs. The result is an improbably wonderful merger of historical references and Reginald Marsh-like pulchritude. The figures are simultaneously funny and grand, and finally so affectionately human that the artist seems wise beyond her years.

Rifka’s massive paintings are in good company with such works as Ken Goodman’s compelling narrative canvases (implying intense interaction between two men), Richard Bosman’s “Whirlpool” painting (looking down on an underwater dance), and a pair of John Ahearn’s painted plaster heads.

A concurrent show of Bob Kai Cheng’s work introduces an unknown Los Angeles artist whose name must be added to books on California assemblage. His version of art-made-from-junk initially looks hopelessly flaky and confused, but as the complexity sinks in, a definite sensibility emerges. It’s that of a visionary who combines near and far views--cosmic backgrounds, globes and stars with mundane details and bric-a-brac. It’s also that of a painter, more concerned with atmosphere and nuance than with volume or constructed mass. This is odd because Cheng goes to enormous trouble to rig up many-tiered assemblages that spin or occasionally light up. “Berlin,” for example, is an intricate stage on wheels, while “O’ Child of the Coliseum” is a three-ring circus honoring the Olympics. Even in these elaborately three-dimensional pieces, Cheng has the delicate touch of a hermit spinning cobwebby fantasies. A few wall pieces coalesce best as Cheng orders his dreams into masterful compositions. The show is presented by dealer Riko Mizuno. (Asher/Faure, 612 N. Almont Drive; “City Art” to July 27, Cheng to Aug. 8.)