LA CIENEGA AREA

If you haven’t yet gorged on the gargantuan feast of Red Grooms’ retrospective at the Temporary Contemporary, you can sample hors d’oeuvres in a small show of his drawings, graphics and multiples. If you’re already stuffed, come for a light dessert. Either way, you’ll be treated to tasty fare.

Except for a couple of duplications, the gallery presents fresh examples of the retrospective’s themes. Instead of a 50-seat Egyptian movie palace screening Grooms’ films, for example, one finds a miniature “Red’s Roxy” showing a Tarzan film. This lithographic multiple is a little box with an old-fashioned pencil-sharpener’s handle. Wind it around while peering through the door of the theater and you’ll see a jungle romance.

A paper sculpture “London Bus” and a color lithograph of a Supreme Products “Truck,” undulating as if on a roller-coaster course, typify his fascination with city transport. Another lithograph, called “Museum,” pokes fun at every pretentious windbag and philistine you ever saw in the house of art.

The most prevalent theme is other artists, and it’s here that Grooms--primarily known for his garrulous, cartoonish style--reveals his range. His portfolio of bawdy etchings of 19th-Century artists depicts Cezanne devouring his famous apples, Renoir in dance-hall drag and Nadar having an orgy in the basket of his balloon. Affecting a somber, expressionistic stance, Grooms remembers Giacometti as an elongated, worried face in a huge black-and-yellow woodcut. A lithograph of Matisse drawing a model in his studio is absolutely calm and very solidly drawn. His art is so much fun, it’s good to be reminded of just how accomplished an artist Grooms is. (Herbert Palmer Gallery, 802 N. La Cienega Blvd., to May 3.)