BEVERLY HILLS

Sculpture by Marc Zimmerman harks back to a time when mythology was thought to possess a credible heroism we’re no longer so quick to grant. The willingness to be enchanted required by such systems of belief is the antithesis of Post-Modernism and a bit out of vogue these days. Sturm und drang we get in spades, but Zimmerman’s grand, rhetorical style is a slightly different kettle of fish.

Zimmerman’s imposing bronze abstractions allude to Sumerian, Egyptian and Mayan culture, but most specifically, they explore Hindu religious themes. He describes the work as “expressions of the essences of natural laws,” and yes, that’s pretty much what it looks like. Zimmerman gets considerable mileage out of his favored material--the variety in color and surface he wrings from bronze is impressive--but he’s fairly pedestrian when it comes to interpreting a theme. A piece titled “Harmony,” for instance, is composed of a network of planes that flow in and out of one another; “Shiva’s Ziggurat” looks exactly like its name (a ziggurat being an Assyrian temple built in the shape of a terraced pyramid); “Temple” takes the shape of a gleaming golden dome, and “Thunderbolt of Indra” involves four thunderbolts supporting a large disc with a jagged crack running through the center.

Though there’s a compelling emotional quality to Zimmerman’s work, sculpture has never quite recovered from Marcel Duchamp’s assertion that common manufactured objects have as much artistic integrity as Rodin’s finest. Hence, work of this mid-size scale--still wedded to the elevating pedestal that lets us know we’re in the presence of Art--is tainted with undercurrents of craft and decoration, and seems curiously old-fashioned. (Stella Polaris, 445 S. Beverly Drive, to Aug. 2.)