La Cienega

Eve of Destruction: Photographers Patrick Nagatani and Andree Tracey once again collaborate on a series of elaborately faked Polaroid still-lifes about nuclear destruction. Intrinsic to the proceedings is a weird kind of gallows humor. The artifice of staged setups puts a patina of frivolity on horror but, increasingly, laughter seems to be choked off. There is a tension and earnestness in this work that is new to the pair.

Nagatani’s New Mexico missile sites haunted by dancing Kachinas still have the unreality of a myth materialized in broad daylight. Conflict between symbolic forces has the edge of a real battle of the Titans.

Tracey’s photo collage, mixed-media paintings are no-holds-barred attacks on the exploitation of the environment. Blunt to the point of being overly didactic, they still pack a punch.

Also on view are richly colored painted towns by Christopher Warner. Standing in the middle of nowhere, they both love and hate the human presence under the big Western sky. Loving the purity of the land, they nonetheless dote on the trash, wheel ruts and power boxes that mark human habitation, pushing them forward like a bulldozer scoops garbage. Through it all, the color is succulent and the trash and sky compete in vivid silence, giving the paintings the eerie stillness of a battleground. (Koplin Gallery, 8225 1/2 Santa Monica Blvd., to March 3.)