LA CIENEGA AREA

A show of a dozen recent sculptures by John Chamberlain is a prelude to his retrospective, opening Wednesday at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Temporary Contemporary facility.

We find the poet of crushed auto bodies looking as lyrical and painterly as ever. He has said that his work is not about violence and, at this point, there’s no disputing that position. Chamberlain simply uses rumpled fenders and twisted bumpers as a creative writer uses words--to make a wide variety of statements.

Some of the brightly colored abstract constructions on view trigger associations with figures. “Mrs. Yif Nif,” a six-foot-tall tour de force, has a regal presence though it looks nothing like a person. Presenting itself as a cluster of red, white, black and silver columns on one side and as a cascade of silver curls on another, it defies the notion of junk sculpture.

With the help of its title, “Portrait of a Nude With a Chrome Fan” puts one in mind of Picasso’s 1908 painting, “Seated Woman Holding a Fan” (now at the County Museum of Art in the Soviet exchange show). “Good Friday” is as loose and gangly as a boneless dancer, but it might as easily be related to landscape.

All the works juxtapose one strong form against another, usually of contrasting hues and sometimes sprayed with graffiti-like patterns. In a flight of fancy, Chamberlain also has built three small toylike pieces, apparently from parts of Tonka trucks. This isn’t as cute as it sounds because he scales down the sculptures and merges their components so that we can’t help seeing them as fluid artworks. (Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., to Aug. 23.)