The Valley

For almost two decades Orlando Gallery has been an eclectic institution here, seeing L.A. through everything from the ‘60s to Post-Modernism. The gallery personality is echoed in the far-out work of one of its owners, Phil Orlando. His punky, spunky mixed-media paintings, sculptures and charming books address man’s two favorite isms, spiritualism and eroticism.

Orlando serves up a predictable Dada goulash of appropriated, altered photos mixed with hand-painted tribal masks and fetishes, collaged passages of effaced print and bits of bric-a-brac. Especially handsome is “Swimmer’s Dream,” with painted African visages overlaying and defusing erotic magazine photos of a rhythmic male swimmer. Orlando’s sense of humor shines in an old LAICA Journal transformed into a charred relic commemorating dance and physicality. Brows may furrow over curatorial objectivity, but the truth is that this show--like his others--has its shiny peaks and dim valleys. (Orlando Gallery, 14553 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, ends today.)