LA CIENEGA AREA

Sol Lewitt’s recent “Flat-top Pyramid Series” brings to mind an observation Mel Bochner once made about work by the Minimalist master: “Although an order is immediately intuited, how to penetrate it is nowhere revealed. Lewitt arrives at a unique breakdown of conceptual order into visual chaos.” That’s pretty much what these crudely executed, gauche drawings do. Flattened pyramids painted in bold colors, the series is obviously rooted in a rigorously cryptic system of logic and, like a complex mathematical problem, it invites the viewer to try his hand at fitting the clues together into a coherent whole.

On view in the main gallery is a group exhibition showcasing work by some of the leading lights of the Modernist movement. Encompassing a variety of styles and ideologies, the survey allots the lion’s share of wall space to artists of the Minimalist persuasion. There’s a Donald Judd painted aluminum box from 1985, a 1974 John McLaughlin hard-edge abstraction (a black field bisected by a single vertical stripe) and one of Agnes Martin’s horizontal stripe jobs, this one executed in exquisitely muted tones of gray and white. The Martin looks swell next to a Ralph Humphrey from 20 years ago. (In fact, Humphrey’s gray field, broken up with three horizontal bands of Day-Glo color, looks as if it could’ve been done by Martin). Then there’s a Joel Shapiro cherrywood box, poised at an angle atop a slender steel pole, and for those who prefer a bit more Sturm und Drang in their art, there’s Julian Schnabel’s shaped canvas that reads as a sort of primitive crucifix. (Daniel Weinberg Gallery, 612 N. Almont Drive, to March 12.)