Santa Monica

Splashy paintings of off-register dollar signs get right to the point in a show of assorted works by the late Andy Warhol. A frenzied auction of Warhol’s collection and escalating prices of his own work have only emphasized the commercial aspects of an artist who put his finger squarely on American consumerism. It’s increasingly difficult to look at Warhol’s art and not see dollar signs, but this spotty 20-year survey of his best-known themes bravely tries to direct attention to his genius.

Screenprints of Campbell’s Soup boxes from the mid-’80s are only wan reruns of Warhol’s earlier soup can paintings, while other exposes of banality and glamour yield potent images and trenchant social commentary. Self-portraits include a poignant 1967 souvenir of a shadowy figure who was constantly in the spotlight, as well as a creepy little 1975 painting called “Strangulation.”

Warhol’s purple portrait of Martha Graham, with her silhouette covered in sparkling “diamond dust,” speaks of fame as a veil of superficiality. Blazing images of Marilyn Monroe, with dark and light reversed, picture the movie queen as an enticing conflagration. Spanning an entire wall, 10 repetitive images of Mao Tse-tung in various color combinations suggest a colossal, Buddha-like figure who was unfazed by transitory changes.

These may be fleeting interpretations, easily interchanged with others, but they indicate that results of Warhol’s appropriation of mass reproduction methods are far more engaging than mere commercial products. (Maloney Gallery, 910 Colorado Ave., to June 19.)