LA CIENEGA AREA

R.M. Fischer is a New York artist but at a glance his work might be that of a set dresser for some primitive science-fiction forerunner of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” or a thrift shop version of “Road Warrior.” He specializes in trappings for the bad guys.

R.M. Fischer may also be a sculptor but he is at great pains to convince he is not and who wants to argue? He comes on like this madly inventive maker of light fixtures concocted from everything from brass eagles and fancy finials to metal lamps. Bullet and kitsch Arabian styles from the ‘50s, festooned on plumbing pipe, are screwed into U-joints and T-joints so they suggest heraldry having dangerous fun with Fascist imagery, like surfer kids that used to wear Maltese crosses.

In some ways these objects put you in mind of funk and emblematic sculpture from the past, but it’s quite clear Fischer doesn’t want us thinking about that. This isn’t about art, it’s about sensibility of the Post-Mod persuasion. It wants to exist in the atavistic future along with special-effects space ships that look like dinosaurs and post-apocalyptic punkers who live in gutted buildings and fashion these objects with trash from the ruins of Acme Hardware.

The stuff is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really point to art issues except insofar as it consciously points away from them toward a culture that is like a backed-up drain clogged with past styles. It lacks the deeper human resonances of art, but it has the ancillary entertainment value of superior design objects. (Daniel Weinberg Gallery, 619 N. Almont Drive, to Jan. 11.)