La Cienega Area

Scampering up the art-world ladder from subway drawings to the Whitney Biennial and the international exhibition circuit, Keith Haring has become an Andy Warhol for the ‘80s. Flaunting a knack for churning out fun art and plenty of savvy for marketing his products, his success story could be titled Graffiti Artist Meets Madison Avenue.

This sort of thing doesn’t please purists, who correctly point out that Haring’s art is thin and repetitive--the sort of stuff that’s made for reproduction--and that his conception of the human form never matures beyond cartoons and cookie cutters. What critics tend to forget is that this work is also charged with undeniable energy. Despite his obvious limitations, Haring has an effervescent talent for drawing maze-like doodles of urban aggression. His people are all bubble-headed fellows, set forth in the same fat, continuous lines and striking combinations of solid colors, but they play out an endless repertoire of physical action and mental tension.

The 10 acrylic paintings in Haring’s current show depict a pair locked in combat, an arm-in-arm line of toe-tappers and a foursome running around a square while their arms solidify into a fence. In these jazzy canvases, a suite of color prints and two walls of black-and-white drawings hung floor-to-ceiling, everyone is too close for comfort. Whether one figure thrashes about in a cage-like space or a whole flock participates in a melee, these images record facts of life in an impacted metropolis. Works based on the comforting theme of generation and growth are equally frantic. Figures sprout from others in totem poles with flailing arms and legs or pop out like cloned acrobatic troops. Cute as they are, Haring’s images fairly vibrate with social pressure. (Michael Kohn Gallery, 313 N. Robertson Blvd., to July 18.)