LA CIENEGA AREA

The Berlin Wall is not a bit funny, but it seems the grimmer things are, the more people need to make light of them. Thus the gray juggernaut is festooned with an ever-changing coat of bright graffiti both serious and silly but all irreverent enough to annoy a commissar.

Last year L.A. photographer Leland Rice exhibited a remarkable series of photographs derived from these graffiti, and now he is back with a second batch of 15 poster-size color prints. If anything, this group is aesthetically superior to the last while retaining all the surprise of a really good idea. At a stroke Rice positioned himself to act the photographers dual--and often contradictory--role as both artist and reporter in making work that legitimately combines aesthetics and social conscience. As if all that weren’t enough, he solved the besetting bugaboo of Neo-Expressionism--how to bring graffiti in from the cold without casting a pall of boutique cosmetics on its rebellious virtuosity.

Rice’s “Detente” is nearly campy in the faux-naif figure of Humpty-Dumpty perched precariously on the wobbly wall of superpower relationships. “They Can’t Take a Joke” adds layers of visual richness. Its sarcastic message in white letters doubles as a formal element to lock the composition to the surface.

So much enthusiasm registered, it also needs to be said that two variations on this theme seems to be about enough. It was courageous and correct for Rice to mute his independent creativity to this rich subject but stringing it out any further might make him too much of a documentarian. (Rosamund Felsen Gallery, 669 N. La Cienega Blvd. to Nov. 8.)