La Cienega Area

Pulling yet another batch of lush, free-standing wood pieces from his apparently limitless sculptural cornucopia, Martin Puryear shines. The sad fact that Puryear was recently the first and only black American to represent the United States in a Biennale (Sao Paulo, ‘88) pales in the face of Puryear’s ability to coalesce the best of craft and the best of the sophisticated eccentricity that marks sculpture in the ‘80s.

When we refer to Puryear’s craft this is not the analytical Teutonic will to order that built cathedrals of glass but the craft of the native weaver or the 19th-Century artist-philosopher William Morris who said that respect for nature and oneness with materials bound object and maker in intimate dialogue. In this spirit, Puryear seems to coax and cajole like a lover the most sensual yet gentle forms from a variety of woods, making sculpture that teeters somewhere between evocations of life forms, functional objects and art for art’s sake.

A large odd-shaped “tub,” too deep and narrow to imply use, is crafted from layer upon layer of steam-moistened, glued, then stapled sheaths of raw, rich wood. From one end of the vessel shoots a queer vertical “handle” worked in a similar way to look like the flat, flexible tail of a beaver. Several fine works are first formed and smoothed in wood then painted in a black charred color and resanded so that strategic bits shine through, attracting light and highlighting every carefully considered yet innocuous looking detail.

One black piece looks like a big abstracted figurine of a long-neck dinosaur seen through primitive eyes; another exquisitely simple piece looks like a hollow storage container for a harp; still another like a stalwart cocoon woven not of silk fibers but of wood slats patiently bent and sanded to the malleability of wet plaster. As a counterpoint to the cerebral energy of Jill Geigerich shown next door, this show is a must. (Margo Leavin Gallery, 817 N. Robertson Blvd., to May 20.)