WILSHIRE CENTER

Edward Glauder is an Australian-born sculptor who has lived in Los Angeles since 1961. His current figurative works are rooted in abstraction, exploring the formal relationship between volumes and planes and freeing the figure from its restrictive associations with narrative and allegory.

Glauder draws upon the totemic, reductive qualities of ancient Egyptian art, as well as the literal directness of African and Oceanic sculpture. This undercuts the work’s innate classical roots, bringing it more in line with the pluralistic iconography of Degas and the fragmented awkwardness of French sculptor Jean Ipousteguy.

Working in black-and-white resin and bronze, Glauder roots each female nude in an overt geometrical structure. Instead of stressing the melodramatic qualities of muscle, flesh and sensuous form, a la Rodin, Glauder focuses on the way limbs and torso interact to form triangles, circles and balanced masses. In “Figure With Base,” for example, the rectangular base is less an anchor for the draped nude that envelops it than an integral part of the composition, drawing attention to proportion and shape rather than an obvious representational vocabulary.

Glauder’s intent here is to strip the figure of its historical baggage, whether iconic, theatrical or sentimental, and to reassert its integrity as pure object. Rather than destroy its aura as an aesthetic signification, however, this merely serves to reinforce it, a sort of displaced, proxy expressionism in which sexuality and emotion are underlined through deliberate and premeditated negation. (Jack Rutberg Gallery, 357 N. La Brea Ave., to Feb. 28.)