ART REVIEW : 3-Person Show Runs From Complex to Sitcom Superficial

After the ninth installment of its New! Improved! annual juried show which closed last month, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art seems to be on a roll. In a three-person show (through Sept. 16), work by recent CalArts master of fine arts graduate Thaddeus Strode yields a level of wit and brain-teasing complexity seldom seen at this low-profile artists’ cooperative.

In his huge “Hexamethalynetetramine” painting, Strode plots big gray-white globs in varying shapes and sizes, black spirals and a couple of old-fashioned funnies characters atop a loose grid of fat gold and pink stripes.

The reference, of course, is to one of those unpronounceable ingredients of modern-day foodstuffs. Strode compresses various tasks in the painting: imagining what the molecular components of the chemical would look like under a microscope, tacitly comparing this dismal age of over-processed food to the never-never land of the funnies pages, and turning the whole thing into a purely visual joke on such art-world subjects as pattern painting and appropriation.

Another highly involved piece by Strode is “Shangri-la: Self-Portrait, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, London Time, Tokyo Time,” in which he juxtaposes photographs of himself with photos of the Abstract Expressionist painters Mark Rothko and Theodore Stamos, and top personnel at Marlborough Gallery in New York, adding corny or teasingly allusive “incorrect” captions such as “one of TV drama’s arch-conspirators.”

The viewer needs to know that the execution of Rothko’s will (1972-82) provoked one of the protracted court cases in modern art. Rothko’s daughter Kate brought a successful suit against Stamos (one of the estate’s executors), Marlborough Gallery owner Frank Lloyd and former gallery secretary-treasurer Bernard Reis (another executor), accusing them of conspiracy and conflict of interest in selling Rothko’s works.

Elsewhere in Strode’s piece, clock hands point to four times, a painting mimics the style of Joan Miro and the OCCCA gallery is pinpointed on a Thomas Brothers map. The hard-to-decipher ideas here seem to circle around the global nature of the contemporary art market, the status of art as an “original” object and the artist as media pawn.

Also on view is work by Chris Gallup and guest artist Laurie Pincus. In “The Notion of Framing Expanded,” Gallup creates a fly-by-night sales lot with strings of pennants a la car dealership, an array of empty frames in various ersatz materials (mock leopard skin to faux marble), and a bunch of slogans (“One Size Fits All,” “Your Art Here”). Unfortunately, the spoof on art-as-commodity wears thin long before the viewer has examined all the merchandise.

Pincus’ “Lessons in Life” is a series of paper doll-like figures standing on separate little platforms with phrases chalked on little blackboards explaining the psychological block each one faces. “Afraid of Her Life” reads the sign next to the cut-out woman in the long print dress with her forearm plastered in front of her face; the man in a fedora clutching a briefcase is “Leaving His Mother for the First Time.” This is l-i-t-e stuff, as perky and harmless as a TV sitcom.

Other pieces by Pincus chirp about such phenomena as wallflowers at a party, personal taste and reactions to art. As conversation pieces for the yuppie set, these brightly colored little wooden tableaux are just the ticket.

Work by Laurie Pincus, Thaddeus Strode and Chris Gallup is on view through Sept. 15 at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Space 111, 3621 W. MacArthur Blvd., Santa Ana. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is free. Information: (714) 549-4989.