ART REVIEWS : A Brief Look at the Film World of Oskar Fischinger

When German artist Oskar Fischinger arrived in Los Angeles in 1936, having fled the rising Nazi terror, he found employment in the film industry. A hitherto successful filmmaker, he eventually worked at Paramount, MGM and Disney. Ultimately, however, the American studio system was unable to accommodate the particular aspirations of the European vanguard. The two were just too different.

Just how different can be seen in a remarkable film Fischinger began (but never completed) about two years before he emigrated to L.A.

“Squares” (1934) was meant to be a brief, wholly abstract exploration into cinematic time and space. It was also meant to be played in movie theaters as a short--a kind of “Steamboat Willie” for the avant-garde.

At the Steve Turner Gallery, a videotaped version of a “sketch” for the planned two- to three-minute film is being shown, together with 25 tempera paintings on paper from which the sketch was made.

Rather like animation cels, the small, brightly colored paintings were photographed sequentially in black and white; then, the film was overlaid with colored filters. The result, as seen in the videotape, is a flowing image of squares merging in and out of one another and a feeling of aerial transport through long, corridor-like spaces.

In all, some 271 small paintings were made for the film. Because this short sequence was looped and segments sometimes reversed, the same sequence can appear in different colors and directions, which yield different perceptual readings of scale and context. And, because the original paintings were done on horizontally rectangular paper, which mimics the shape of the screen, the largest squares seem visually to expand beyond the edges of the frame, engulfing the spectator’s space.

The experience of “Squares” is characterized by an odd sense of transparency, which is in keeping with the cinematic medium but ironic for imagery built from opaque paintings. Conceptually, the geometric abstractions of Kandinsky and the Delaunays are clear precedents. But, conceived specifically for the demands of an industrial society, Fischinger’s paintings depart in being beautifully crafted objects whose life was given spark by the machinery through which they were threaded.

Steve Turner Gallery, 7220 Beverly Blvd., (213) 931-1185, through May 23. Closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.