Santa Monica

Tom Wesselmann is long known for Pop-style comic-book nudes that function as takeoffs on our culture’s obsession with sex and violence. His constructions used clocks, air conditioners and photomontaged cityscapes to evoke the same sarcastic urban flavor.

Well, time has mellowed Wesselmann. Unlike the ‘60s and ‘70s, it’s OK to be a lyrical draftsman today, and Wesselmann shows he’s just that, in wall-hung, contour drawings cut out of very thin sheets of metal. Negative space is completely cut away so that the bare white wall functions almost like a drawing ground.

“Vivienne,” a big female face with bee-stung lips and bull’s eye breasts, is closest to the Wesselmann we know. The laser-cut pieces are more atypical. A computer directs a laser to cut steel according to Wesselmann’s free-hand drawings, recording every wisp of the brush and sleight of the hand. Clusters of flowers in vases, fruit bowls, an impish remake of a Mondrian grid, and, of course, Wesselmann’s bevy of ripe odalisques are formed from the lacy, brightly painted metal. Though some will find the textbook Wesselmann dated and the new one a little too civilized, works have the spontaneous, schooled charm of life drawings scrawled on a wall. (BlumHelman, 916 Colorado Ave., to Feb 18.)