THE MORE THINGS CHANGE. . . : “Updating” the Grand Masters, Sandow Birk Looks Back to the Present

In Sandow Birk’s brash updates of 18- and 19th-Century paintings of historical events, contemporary urban violence and not-so-quiet desperation are translated into a weird fusion of straight-arrow realism, stagy tableaux and eye-popping visual effects. A selection of these recent canvases, along with a Los Angeles riot-themed version by Birk and ceramic artist Stephen Rivers of Auguste Rodin’s “Gates of Hell,” are at the Orange Coast College Art Gallery through Oct. 1.

Birk’s grip on the high-flown issues underlying the art of the past sometimes may seem slippery, but his tactic is undeniably clever, and his unemotional, disengaged viewpoint is ultra-contemporary. His paintings also happen to be filled with enough jumpy details to engage even the most jaded, MTV-numbed viewer.

“The Defense of the Many Food Market” portrays a group of angry-looking black men, armed with rifles, attacking three Korean shopkeepers. Swirling around the scene are spray-painted images (by Devin Flynn) of consumer goods (a TV, a blow-dryer), a stereotyped cartoon-Asian face, and the comic book symbols (stars, explosions, a concentric swirl) that signify “conflict!”

“Big Rat Trap” shows a trio of policemen shooting at a burly black man dressed in overalls and holding a tire iron, while two frightened girls are comforted by an older woman. Spray-painted graffiti-style elements--an eyeball popping out of a cow’s head, a fierce blue blob shooting back at police--mingle with such realistic details as discarded spray cans, telephone poles and a bus stop bench.

In “President Bush Visiting the L.A. Riots,” the President is shown gingerly fingering the bandaged wound on a black man’s chest while other men either pose in attitudes of abject despair or keep a firm grip on looted electronic equipment.

Birk ransacks the art historical past for works--turgid academic paintings as well as acknowledged masterpieces--with usable dramatic compositions. As he writes in a statement posted in the gallery, his paintings work best when there is a “strong correlation between the intent and social commentary of the original painting and my version of it.”

Choosing Antoine-Jean Gros’ hero-worshiping painting of “Napoleon Visiting the Pest House at Jaffa” (1804) as the model for “President Bush Visiting the Riots in L.A.” provided a near-perfect fit.

The Gros painting is a carefully stage-managed version of an actual event, the French general visiting his plague-stricken troops in Egypt after he led them to defeat by the British under Admiral Nelson. Napoleon is a Christ-like figure with a healing touch, distinct from his all-too-human aides, one of whom covers his nose with his handkerchief to seal out the smell of rotting flesh and vomit.

Birk carefully copied this detail--with Secret Service men in shades substituting for the aides--as well as the dejected and wasted figures of the suffering troops. Like Bush, Napoleon believed he could mold public opinion, and he, too, had just seen his policies lead to a crushing defeat. But while Gros adored Napoleon and portrayed him as a noble hero, Birk paints the President as a bewildered man with awkward posture.

“Big Rat Trap” is based on portions of Jacques-Louis David’s “The Oath of the Horatii” (1784) and “The Lictors Bringing Back to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons” (1789), paintings meant to shore up the moral fiber of the French public in the years and months preceding the French Revolution.

“Horatii,” an enormously popular painting in its time, depicts three brothers of ancient Rome pledging to sacrifice their lives for their country as they reach for swords held by their father. Drooping at the side of the painting, several women--including a sister engaged to one of the enemy--mourn the carnage to come.

“The Lictors” is a painting about the elemental conflict between duty and love. A Roman father sits stoically in the shadows after condemning his sons to death as traitors to the republic; illuminated by a pool of light, a group of women and girls mourn dramatically for the lost lives.

It’s easy to see that the poses of the sorrowing women from the “Lictors” translate perfectly to the grieving Los Angeles women. And it’s just a bit less obvious that Birk’s transformation of the Horatii into the three cops makes sense because the police also have sworn to protect their city--with violence if necessary.

It even makes sense that the father in “Horatii” metamorphoses into a police target in “Rat Trap.” The father holds up his open palm as a symbol of loyal obedience to political will; the guy in overalls holds up his open palm in obedience to a police command--though probably not, in this instance, out of loyalty to any particular ideal.

In a recent interview, Birk described traditional history paintings with patriotic or military themes as “propaganda” meant to persuade people “that it was worth sacrificing their sons to fight.” Because he views these paintings as “so dramatic and staged and false . . . that it’s like a joke,” he borrowed their grandiose compositions to expose the false romanticism underlying gang warfare. The post-riot paintings were the obvious next step.

Well, history paintings were used as propaganda, but the best ones also contained a ballast of thought-provoking literary references and moral high seriousness--not to mention exquisite treatment of volume and line and color. To contemporary viewers, David’s idealized compositions presented a higher truth than any “mere” recording of real life could offer.

Birk--the product of a much more narrowly focused, superficial era--seems oblivious to all that. He renders the passing scene in a flat, workaday brand of realism. In interviews, his “high seriousness” amounts to little more than a generalized cynicism about escalating violence and factionalized ethnic groups.

But that lack of engagement is as typical of our time as the high moral ground was for David. With apologies to Marshall McLuhan, Birk devastatingly borrows the “hot” medium of morally engaged history painting for the “cool” message of late 20th-Century relativism, substituting lively comic books on a grand scale for the theater of ideas.

In the punningly titled “The Gates of Hell,” a mixed-media relief sculpture, former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates appears as a swaggering sheriff, guns at the ready, who floats above city buildings, helpless-looking stick figure civilians and a row of National Guardsmen. Other imagery in the piece includes the now-infamous scene of Rodney G. King’s beating, a pair of handcuffs, a coffin, the scales of justice, a police shield--and a final veristic touch: a spray of white “graffiti.”

The connection with the Rodin original, which has reliefs of tormented figures based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” is pretty fuzzy. Once again, Birk hollows out a work from the past to drop in a cartoon vision of the present. But unlike the paintings, the sculpture hasn’t enough sparking points of contact with the original to give off a charge.

(Thursday from 7 to 10 p.m., a free symposium on the exhibit will be held in Fine Arts Hall 119 on the Orange Coast College campus. Participants will be exhibit curator Irini Vallera-Rickerson, professor of art history and director of the Orange Coast College Art Gallery; Terry Timmins, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology, and James A. Kowalski, a therapist and professor of psychology. Information: (714) 432-5039.)

What: “The Gates of Hell” and Los Angeles Landscapes of the ‘90s by Sandow Birk.

When: Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through Oct. 1. Also, 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 21 and Tuesday, Sept. 22. Special arrangements for groups available.

Where: The Orange Coast College Art Gallery, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa.

Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (I-405) Freeway to the Fairview Road exit; drive south to Orange Coast College. Park off Arlington Drive.

Wherewithal: Admission is free.

Where to call: (714) 432-5039.