LA CIENEGA AREA

An exhibition of new work by New York artist Jean Michel Basquiat looks as though it was pieced together out of debris scavenged at an abandoned elementary school. Weathered doors, the rusted remains of an erector set, banged-up little desks and hunks of pegboard are combined in whimsical assemblages that chronicle the aimless ramblings of a restless young mind.

The particular mind at work appears to be that of an unusually hip sixth-grader who’s obsessed with jazz and extraterrestrial life. Among the crudely rendered data are drawings of Martians, cop cars, monkeys and the digestive tract, and loads of random information scribbled in a childish scrawl. Lists of the sort we’re forced to memorize in grade school are dutifully transcribed; these alphabetical logs of grains, the elements and the animal kingdom are punctuated with phrases relating to jazz--”bop debut,” “Charley Parker’s All Stars,” “Dizzy Gillespie.” Adding mystery to this grammar-school stew are such enigmatic phrases as “link parabole,” and “Vienna late Sept 1897.”

One of the most fashionable and successful young New Wave artists, Basquiat has a more refined touch than the Neo-Exniks he’s frequently lumped with. His central references are black folk art, child art and the art of the insane, all of which operate on the premise that there’s great truth and charm to be found in simplicity. However, in the context of a high-rolling gallery, such seeming guilelessness becomes a sophisticated affectation, and the amateurish look of Basquiat’s work is deceptive. He is in fact an artist of high style and droll wit, and his work speaks in a breezy, supremely confident tone. Because his paintings are riddled with scribbled words and phrases, Basquiat is often described as a graffiti artist, but he handles vernacular language in a rather roundabout way.

Pictures and words are sometimes painted directly onto the surface but often appear as though they were scribbled on ragged scraps of notebook paper, converted into color Xerox, then silk-screened onto a hunk of wood. This makes for pristine graffiti that’s been drained of angry blood. But then Basquiat is far too stylish, hip and cool to get mad, and the blase mood of this show suggests that he’s well aware that he needn’t raise his voice to attract attention. (Larry Gagosian Gallery, 510 N. Robertson Blvd., to Feb 8.)