Wilshire Center

Mino Argento’s checkerboard-strewn abstractions are an ‘80s version of the lightweight sensibility of those School of Paris painters who embroidered on the big guys’ themes. He specializes in geometric shapes with cloudy edges, expanses of industrial gray touched up with bright-and-airy candy-colored backgrounds.

There’s a slight bow in the chic direction of architecture (mitered-frame shapes, graph-ruled passages and even the suggestion of a facade or two). It all works best when the shapes are crisp, smartly patterned and manageably small. (April Sgro-Riddle Gallery, 836 N. La Brea Ave., to Feb. 10.)