La Cienega Area

Mitchell Syrop’s images are borrowed from travel posters, his words from phrases freighted with acculturated meaning. He puts the two together in graphically sharp artworks that play with the vagaries of multilayered associations and accepted interpretations.

“Authentic Reproduction” runs across a view of palms in a sunset, the sort of reproduction that’s a staple of travel ads. In a similar vein, “Economy Class” is paired with a tropical island, while “Get Lost” turns up on a woodsy scene, “Fertile Soil” on a flower garden.

Each travel poster is affixed to a black or white board twice the size of the image. One of the two words is formed by letters torn like holes out of the poster; the other is ripped from an identical poster and assembled on the plain area. This technique suggests that one word has become another in the process, as if the familiar pairing were inevitable.

Syrop’s juxtaposition of stock images and phrases doesn’t always ring true, but the concept works generically. It’s part of the widespread criticism of mass communication and a brain-dead audience that has proliferated and become more cynical since the early days of Pop art. As a participant in that ongoing commentary, Syrop may not be an innovator, but he has come up with a fresh way of running cliches up the flagpole and jerking us out of the stupor of easy recognition. (Kuhlenschmidt-Simon Gallery, 9000 Melrose Ave., to May 7.)