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La Cienega

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A new gallery comes on like gang busters with an inaugural exhibition of small works by modern masters Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock and Constantin Brancusi. A legend in his own time, the brilliantly cheeky Duchamp permanently altered the course of art in the 20th Century as a founding father of Dadaism and a pioneering Conceptualist. Of eight works on view, the most notable is “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box).” An opulent memento of Duchamp’s masterwork of the same name, “The Green Box” is a green suede box containing 93 reproductions of photographs, drawings and manuscripts compiled by the artist from 1911-15 when he worked on “The Bride.” No. 4 in an edition of 300 overseen by the artist in 1934, “The Green Box” is a real treasure for anyone interested in the workings of the mind of this great man.

Two early works by Pollock are textbook illustrations of the evolution of his trademark style. A figurative oil from the early ‘30s, “Woman,” depicts a coven of nude harridans and looks more like Francis Bacon than Pollock; it’s intensely expressionistic but Pollock hasn’t yet found his voice. In “Composition With Woman,” a canvas from the late ‘30s, you can see Pollock’s unique surface handling and composition coalescing. Also on view are a few interesting Pollock oddities--a crayon and pencil drawing from the late ‘30s, a vaguely figurative painting from 1946--and photographs and a work from 1925 by Romanian abstract sculptor Brancusi. (Tokoro Gallery, 320 N. Robertson Blvd., to July 8.)

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