ART REVIEWS : Halley’s New Universe: Spirituality and Technology

Neo-Geo was a mid-’80s art trend that never really got off the ground. Also known as Smart Art, Neo-Geo referred to a refurbished style of geometric abstraction that incorporated elements of Appropriationism, Pop, Minimalism and Conceptualism. New York artist Peter Halley--a whiz kid known as much for his writings on art theory as for his work--was the leading exponent of the style; and, as can be seen in an exhibit at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Santa Monica, Halley’s work is progressing in leaps and bounds, though the trend that launched it ran out of steam some time ago.

Halley explains himself as “interested in the two-dimensional, graphic quality of contemporary life; flat information--architectural diagrams, corporate flow charts, electronic circuit boards--have come to dominate our cognitive universe.” Fed on the ideas of Michel Foucault, Marshall McLuhan and Andy Warhol, Josef Albers’ color theory, and a healthy dose of semiotics, his work concerns itself with what’s going on visually and spatially in our culture. “One of the basic premises in my work,” he says, “is that the flat, diagrammatic, two-dimensional space of our culture is more important than the three-dimensional objects in it.” That’s a highly debatable point, but a provocative one--but then, Halley is never less than provocative.

This new body of work marks a major departure for the artist. For several years, Halley’s ideas took the form of resolutely flat and confrontational hard-edge abstractions rendered in eye-searing Day-Glo colors. His new work is devoid of color, and the flatness is gone as well. Large sculptural relief paintings rendered in drab gray fiberglass, these new pieces are described by Halley as “diagramatic projections.” He’s still dealing with the idea of flow charts, but his work is getting thicker and more ambitious; and, among the things he attempts to chart with these philosophical constructs is the merging of spirituality and technology. According to Halley, technology is an order that’s come to dominate all other orders, so for him it’s taken on transcendental powers.

Describing his painting technique as “mechanical and without reflection,” Halley never violates the structural integrity of the grid that is central to his work, and he alludes to the constraint of geometrical order in all the pieces. This is particularly true of “Cinder Block Prison,” a comically severe piece that revolves around a barred square that resembles a prison cell. Halley had these works fabricated at a Hollywood prop house called “Scenery West,” and they’re ostentatiously artificial; but at the same time, they’re threatening and curiously sad and claustrophobic. Looking at them, one thinks of the philosopher who theorizes himself into an ideological corner, the scientist who burns off a finger at his own laboratory table. Placing its faith in science and numbers, the work dismisses the powers of luck and magic--things that don’t show up on flow charts and resist quantification. This is one of several loaded issues raised by these complex, very hip paintings.

Michael Kohn Gallery: 920 Colorado Blvd., Santa Monica, (213) 393-7713, to Jan 4. Closed Sunday and Monday.

American Gothic: A current of Gothic, distinctly American mysticism evocative of Albert Pinkham Ryder runs through the work of Joe Andoe. Born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., where he grew up in a strictly religious household, Andoe paints with the painful earnestness characteristic of devotional pictures and the roiling emotions of someone on intimate terms from an early age with the idea of heaven and hell. As with paintings by William Wegman, his work exudes a weird, blissed-out spookiness.

Previously, Andoe’s pictures centered on Christian religious motifs; this new body of work deals with symbols of nature--geese, horses, roses, oak branches. Andoe renders this vocabulary of simple forms with a crude hand that puts one in mind of the folk culture of the Bible Belt (such things as weather vanes and quilting patterns), and usually floats them over generic landscapes indicated by broad horizontal bands of contrasting color. For instance, a strip of brown is the earth, a wider strip of white is the sky, and suspended smack dab in middle of the composition is a huge black rose. These vast, empty landscapes perhaps allude to the endless plains that surround Andoe’s childhood home; what the black rose alludes to is anybody’s guess.

A reductive painter who works with a rough touch, Andoe imbues his work with a barely controlled hysteria; when he paints light it has a piercing clarity, when he paints dark it’s a velvety, deathly black you could drown in. Accentuating the strange climate of these works is the fact that Andoe signs his paintings in a flowery script, and often prominently positions the signature at the center of his compositions. Andoe explains this affectation with the theory that the paintings are “offerings,” and the signature preserves the identity of the offerer. That humble idea doesn’t quite jibe with the effect of the signature, which is strangely aggressive, almost hostile.

BlumHelman: 916 Colorado Blvd., Santa Monica, (213-451-0955), to Jan 5. Closed Sunday and Monday. Classical Gas: “I am a classicist at heart,” says Gunther Forg, a West German conceptualist best known for ambitious installations designed to investigate architectural theory, among many other things. In a series of new paintings executed on lead sheeting over wood, he takes a revisionist look at Abstract Expressionism--and comes up with very handsome paintings whose conceptual underpinnings are hard indeed to detect. This looks like straight, “sincere” expressionism, but in light of Forg’s history there must be more to them, right? Well, maybe not. One detects a faint whiff of potentially sarcastic nostalgia--Barnett Newman is invoked, along with Rothko--but the paintings don’t seem intended to be ironic (they’re too somber and evocative for that). Stare at them long and hard, but no trap door reveals itself; they tell nothing about themselves, other than that they’re beautiful.

Also on view are small paintings by Robert Fosdick forged out of glass and steel. Cold, Minimalist works dominated by limpid, shimmering surfaces that suck up the viewer’s reflection like a metaphysical sponge, Fosdick shows us nothing we haven’t seen before, but his version works just fine.

Luhring, Augustine, Hetzler: 1330 Fourth St., Santa Monica, (213-394-3964), to Jan 12. Closed Sunday and Monday.