HOLLYWOOD

One of the more interesting contradictions resulting from the cross-cultural hybridization between East and West has been the ambiguous status of the art object itself. In Oriental cultures the object is largely employed as a catalyst for meditation; in the West it is usually rooted in signs and symbols.

Ann Page’s paper and wood sculptures are particularly interesting insofar as they pay lip service to both philosophies without reaching a contrived or logical synthesis. The results are essentially a metaphor of ephemerality, where transcendence is alluded to through a condition of material and conceptual ebb and flow.

Page’s usual strategy is to counterpoint the organic properties of her materials with the enigmatic nature of the objects themselves. The latter are almost impossible to decipher, conjuring up images of stick-framed kites, pods, cocoons, twisted airship frameworks and vaguely anthropomorphic organisms. They are both earthbound, epitomized by the tent-like installation “Flux,” and ethereal, as if one whiff of wind will send them soaring into the stratosphere. Yet there is also a parallel notion of metamorphosis, of time passing, of organisms shedding their skins and evolving from birth to maturity, from old age to death.

In many ways, paper is the perfect vehicle for such an aesthetic. It can by turns be soft, porous, translucent and fragile, or, when treated with dyes and waterproofing agents, taut, strong and opaque. In Page’s hands it can appear as leathery as cow hide or as transparent as rice paper. There is a danger, however, that the more the work revels in the properties of its materials, the more susceptible it becomes to fetishizing process. More serious is a tendency to turn a vocabulary of flux into an ingrained style, where structures of ambiguity become as formulaic as the worst mannerism. Page has generally managed to avoid these pitfalls by paying constant attention to shifting structural and contextural parameters, and as a result her work has remained fresh and innovative. (Space, 6015 Santa Monica Blvd., to Oct. 11.)