La Cienega Area

Once employed by a major Chicago gallery where he routinely overheard couples wonder aloud whether work might be “adjusted” to fit with their decor, Tony Tasset has thoroughly digested the commodity factor in contemporary art. His sculptures are exquisitely crafted Minimalist artifacts sealed off from viewer-engagement; his “paintings” are framed animal hides.

“Open Sculpture Bench” is a planter-like darkly stained wooden container lushly lined in maroon leather and (uselessly) open only on top. The rows of leather-covered cushion buttons suggest a luxe interpretation of serial progression. “Display Sculpture (With Leaning Plank)” is a long plank covered in swank maroon suede and enclosed within a Plexiglas-and-blonde wood box. The repressed tease of that untouchable tactile element and the outrageousness of garbing a “primary shape” in tasteful fabric are very much to the point.

Framed in tan-painted wood, a fawn-colored piece of leather obligingly takes on the look of a Turneresque landscape in “Domestic Abstraction.” An imperfection in the skin becomes a horizon line and the variegations in color suggest the play of light. So “nature” assumes the work of the artist, but it turns out to be just another swatch of quality goods. (Weinberg Gallery, 619 N. Almont Drive, to Aug. 6.)