Wilshire Center

The holidays and the spate of out-of-town art aficionados dropping in for Art/LA 88 is the occasion for pulling together six sculptors with nothing in common but their Los Angeles connections. But while long-established artists such as Guy Dill, Bernar Venet and Arman are familiar on the local scene, the work of Max DeMoss, David Provan and Malcolm O’Leary is worthy of special note.

Provan’s wax on wood skeletal geometric forms that twist and cantilever out into space share Mark Lere’s interest in open volumes containing space. The two pieces with their attendant shadows have an interesting and spritely intelligence and deserve a future look.

The front and back concave surfaces of O’Leary’s crude wooden seedpod/shields are painted with iridescent ocean sunsets. The somewhat sweet lyricism of the painting and the rough primitivism of the sculptures themselves are a startling admixture that surprisingly still feels cohesive.

DeMoss’ classical dancing figures and horses cast in bronze and balancing on the ends of tall thin poles have a lot in common with the works of Robert Graham. But where Graham is looking for perfection in these forms, DeMoss makes the casting process a central concern. His rough external seams that roughly fragment each piece impart an enervating in-process energy to the forms. (Wenger Gallery, 828 N. La Brea Ave., to Dec. 31.)