HE CONSTRUCTS HIS ART ON CONSTRUCTION SITES

Tall, blond and modishly dressed, Tim Close looks as though he would be more at home on a film set than sneaking into construction sites to create his art.

But Close’s “Environment/AntiEnvironment” series, on view through Saturday at the James Turcotte Gallery, is clear Cibachrome evidence of the artist’s weekend forays into industrial spaces to fabricate the unexpected.

“I started this work because I’m interested in the predominance of the construction site in the urban landscape,” he said. Beginning with straight photographic observations of these sites, Close, who received his MFA in photography from CalArts in 1983, began to do some constructing of his own.

Risking a new twist on fabricated-to-be-photographed art--a strategy of making or painting something for the express purpose of photographing it--he began setting up painted installations inside unfinished buildings.

“The title, ‘Environment/AntiEnvironment,’ refers to the mapped-out qualities of architecture, things that are described and are supposed to be there,” he explained, “versus the more spontaneous things that I do.” The stark industrial environment provides a foil for Close’s more expressive, colorful endeavors. “This work deals with an intersection between architecture, vandalism, graffiti and photography.”

The architecture consists of buildings under construction--raw, unfinished spaces of industrial warehouses, hospitals and office buildings located all over the Los Angeles area. The vandalism and graffiti occur when Close, with a large-format camera, a few cans of spray paint and carpenter’s crayons in tow, gains access to one of these sites and spends a weekend afternoon executing his unorthodox and ephemeral constructions. Photography becomes the souvenir, the last remaining evidence of his adventure.

“I usually spend about four or five hours at a time,” he explained. “I work during the day, always on the weekends when there’s nobody there. Once or twice I’ve been kicked off or asked to leave by a guard . . . and once I was pinned to the wall by a dog. . . . Usually, I try to go to a site where I’m not going to have any problems. I might go to two or three in one day and I’ll eventually find one where there’s nobody there.”

Still, the element of risk is always present. “I think we all like a little bit of risk in our lives,” he said. “I don’t see myself as being reckless, but we do have to take some risks and it always makes things a little more exciting.”

Once inside, Close discovers a new and different environment each time, a space where he can try out his ideas and experiment with found materials and available light. “Each place is like going to a new studio,” he said. “I walk into a place and think, ‘What a nice atmosphere!’ There are all those supplies there that I get to play with and that’s fun in itself.”

Tilted ladders, a crayon-colored sunset, brightly painted lumber and electrical cords, graffiti notations on cinder blocks and ceilings all intersect in Close’s photographs to create the theatrical and ambiguous qualities of space and scale that he seeks. Sometimes he will find reflective glass, giving him the opportunity to experiment with spatial illusion. Other times, he will pick a spot for its available light or the presence of arc lamps and he will play graffiti shadow against actual shadow.

“I have some ideas of what I want to do as far as spray paint goes. I have ‘X’ amount of colors to use. . . . I basically know how it’s going to be photographed beforehand. Sometimes I work through the camera and run back and forth--there’s always that, once I get to the final stages. And sometimes I work in front of the camera and build everything and then photograph it. The activity is part of it, too. I like the rawness and the visceral quality of it. It’s not pristine. It has a raw edge.”

Once Close is finished with his art-making, he leaves, conscious of the fact that his installation will eventually be obliterated or concealed as the workers return and the building is completed.

“It’s kind of like archeology, if you think backward,” he mused, “placing something there that will be covered up and may not be found again. A site that I go to may be in that state for one weekend or one week.” I leave the installations--the ‘AntiEnvironment’--intact. I never go back to revisit, so I have no idea what the reaction is.”

On the whole, Close’s intentions are less political than aesthetic and conceptual. He’s happy if viewers come away from his work with a broader perspective of what art can be and a desire “to question the social implications of why a person would break into a place just to make art.” Some Monday morning soon, if all goes well, another group of construction workers may be asking that question.