ART REVIEW : Muni Gallery’s ‘Focus’ Lacks Coherence

“Focus: Systems” is the title of the group exhibition on view at the Municipal Gallery at Barnsdall Park through March 4, but as is often the case in the art world--a major violator when it comes to flabby use of language--that catchy phrase turns out to mean next to nothing.

Curated by Ed Leffingwell, “Systems” is based on the idea that the 15 artists included in the show have developed systems in the course of pursuing their creative muses. One hates to be difficult, but it seems that any method of art making--or trash collecting, tooth brushing, you name it--can be described as a system. Moreover, there’s no common approach to systems that link these artists so as to make the combination of their work add up to a larger coherent point. So much for the curatorial premise.

Evaluated as a group show, “Systems” is, well, a group show. Compelling and plausible premises for group shows don’t grow on trees, and, more often than not, survey shows are like going to a theater and sitting through an evening of trailers rather than a movie. An efficient way of giving exposure to budding artists not yet developed enough to carry off solo shows, group shows rarely offer an experience of much depth.

Several of the artists here--Buzz Spector, Fred Fehlau, Mark Lipscomb--are far enough along in their careers that they could (and did) pull off one-man shows, and one wonders why they agreed to participate in this ill-conceived exhibition. Perhaps they just liked the company they’d be keeping in “Systems,” as much of the work in the show is very good.

Stephen Berens shows four works involving varnished photographs printed on Masonite. Modular units fit together to comprise these darkly sensuous pieces that juxtapose surprisingly similar images of the planet Uranus (received digitally from the Mariner space probe) with microscopic pictures of cells infected with cancer.

Four works from Lisa Bloomfields’ “Motivation” series match miraculous stories of success with stodgy portraits of the stories’ subjects. Penelope Krebs shows three hard edge Neo-Geo stripe paintings derivative of work by Peter Halley, while Sam Erenberg’s untitled installation is evocative of work by Allan McCollum. Erenberg has fashioned dozens of small paintings, put them in oddly shaped wood frames and hung them salon style from floor to ceiling.

Fred Fehlau shows two elegantly icy minimal sculptures, while Robbert Flick and Elizabeth Bryant reprise ideas associated with Ed Ruscha. Flick’s large photographic mural depicts every building on La Cienega Boulevard from Melrose to Beverly, while Bryant presents words as icons in her “Flashcard” series. Like tools for teaching a child to read, the paintings combine images with groups of words.

Mark Lipscomb continues his evolution from landscape to abstract Expressionism in frenzied new works that dispense altogether with the horizon line that once governed his work, while Constance Mallinson makes patchwork paintings comprised of clusters of small landscapes; her “An Ideal Landscape (After Claude Lorrain)” could be described as a landscapes’ greatest hits. A collage of miniature versions of cliched notions of the picturesque, “An Ideal Landscape” positions an image of Monument Valley next to an Arthurian castle that is butted up against the French countryside. A case of visual overload, the painting explodes with one crescendo after the next, and it leaves the eye frantically trying to decide where to rest.

Just as this show, which also includes work by Dominique Blain, Stephen Glassman, Yolande McKay, Robert Millar and Linda Roush, leaves the mind groping for the meaning of “Focus: Systems.”